(...)Time does not stay and wait for us. When we sleep, or daydream, it runs on like the motion of a stream, never turning or never slowing, forever running from the mountain to the plain. That is why true philosophers lament the loss of time more than the loss of gold. Seneca put it this way:"Belongings can be restored, but time cannot be retrieved." It cannot be recovered. It would be easier to turn a pregnant girl into a virgin. So let us not moulder now in idleness.
"You can see the evidence all around you. Consider the oak. Its life is so long, its nourishing so slow from its first growth to its final form, and yet in the end it will fade and fall. Consider also how the hardest stone under our feet will eventually be worn away. (...)All things must end. It is the law of life itself. Men and women grow from youth to age by due process; king and slave both expire. (...)There is only one outcome. Death holds dominion."
"There is no man who has died on earth without having first lived. And so there is no one alive who will not at some point die. This world is nothing but a thoroughfare of woe, down which we all pass as pilgrims."
(...)But there is an old saying, proven many times, that "Field have eyes and wood have ears." It behoves all of you to behave wisely, because you never know whom you are going to meet. The course of life is unexpected.