The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain of the malice of nature, because our life is short, and because the time given to us flows away so swiftly that all, excepting a very few, find it gone before they are aware of it; and it is not merely the common crowd and the unthinking multitude that moan over this evil, as if it were a universal one; the same complaint is uttered by those whose fame has summoned them to public office, and from the mouths of the most celebrated men rings this same cry: 'Since I entered upon affairs, since I was raised to the rank of senator, all the time of my life has been spent on borrowings; I have not yet seen any sure possession of my days.' Hence we never hear men of high station complain of the shortness of life without leaving the impression that they regret it. But life is long enough, and it has been granted a sufficient length for the accomplishment of the very greatest things, if it were all well employed. But when it is squandered in luxury and negligence, when there is nothing left for good endeavours, when at last we perceive, too late, that it has slipped away and that we did not notice it as it passed, there is no need to cast our eyes upon the whole world: it is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long, if you know how to use it; often it runs over too abundantly and too freely; one must add a vigilant economy to it. Let us not, moreover, wait for old age to examine whether we have lived; we must not believe that a long life is a long one. Men will object that many have not completed a career of several centuries, like Nestor; that is because time is not measured by the number of years, but by the use made of them. There are moments in which we do not live; therefore one cannot say that life is short on account of that part of it in which nothing is done, and which is, so to speak, dead before it has begun. Consider, then, whether the cause of the shortness of life is not in ourselves, and remember how much time you have lost in other ways: how much in pursuing a patron without reason, how much in courting a friend, how much in flattering those whom it was useless to flatter, how much in writing, how much in reading, how much over a horse, how much in pleadings and in learning that brings no profit. Consider at the same time how much time illness has snatched from you, and how much your duties have required; there will remain but a little of life. Acknowledge, in the end, that you are dead, or that you have lost the greatest and most necessary of your possessions. Learn, therefore, to desire to live always; know that if you wish to live your whole life, you must die in possession of yourself. How many people surround a sick man; yet there is no one who thinks of telling him that it is time to live. He is pressed, solicited, urged; but no one says to him that life presses. Why then do we so often complain that others seek to rob us of life, since we ourselves give no thought to preserving it? It is not that we have received a short life, but that we have made it short: we are not poor, we are prodigal. Just as magnificent and lavish kings, amid immense wealth, have made rivers of gold flow and have not blushed to be wrinkled by the multitude of their gifts, and have ruined their opulence by excessive liberality, so those men whom we call prodigal of their life lose their days with a shameful ease. You will object that I exaggerate. But time is the one thing of which it is shameful to be wasteful when it is wasted through misconduct; he who is lavish with his money is called prodigal, and shall he who is lavish with his time not bear that name? It is certain that time is the most precious of possessions. Just as one values an inheritance, just as he who owns splendid houses and great revenues is regarded as a powerful and venerable man, so one ought to value a man in proportion to the time he possesses: but just as we make light of health, and goods that are preserved without labour are less prized, so time, so long, so free, so clear, such that nothing can take it away, is precisely that of which we make the least. He who knows how to use his time does not possess enough of it; hence everyone labours at living, and labours at losing time. We undertake tasks in order to arrive at living; and then we wish to enjoy it. We always put off: 'We shall live', we say; we wait to live. But the greatest obstacles to living are hope and the future; the one makes us wait, the other disappoints us. The greatest remedy against this disease is to fix each hour, and to say to every moment: this is the time. The greatest of losses is that of life; and one may reckon it by years, by months, by hours. See how many remain, how many are needed for necessary things; and when you have made this reckoning, you will see that you have little time, and you will take your revenge by measuring it. Therefore, my dear Paulinus, free yourself from that crowd: dispersed as it is, it tears you apart. Hold fast to your days, guard your hours; you can take nothing back from life, add nothing, subtract nothing from your days; you will not be reduced to giving up anything; you will not lose your time. Cling, then, to the present; life is broader than you believe.