A passage from Seneca
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius Letter 18
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Set aside now and then a number of days during which you will be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?'
Related passages
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Everything you're trying to reach — by taking the long way round — you could have right now, this moment. If you'd only stop thwarting your own attempts.
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Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life. Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee.
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He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon.