the wise man sees things of greater worth and prefers them to it.
Half knowledge and sham wisdom set us thinking about death and
what lies beyond it; and they thus create the worst of our ills.
The wise man bears life's ills all the better because he knows
he must die. Life would be too dearly bought did we not know that
sooner or later death will end it.

Our moral ills are the result of prejudice, crime alone excepted,
and that depends on ourselves; our bodily ills either put an end
to themselves or to us. Time or death will cure them, but the less
we know how to bear it, the greater is our pain, and we suffer more
in our efforts to cure our diseases than if we endured them. Live
according to nature; be patient, get rid of the doctors; you will
not escape death, but you will only die once, while the doctors
make you die daily through your diseased imagination; their lying
art, instead of prolonging your days, robs you of all delight in
them. I am always asking what real good this art has done to mankind.
True, the doctors cure some who would have died, but they kill
millions who would have lived. If you are wise you will decline to
take part in this lottery when the odds are so great against you.
Suffer, die, or get better; but whatever you do, live while you
are alive.

Human institutions are one mass of folly and contradiction. As our
life loses its value we set a higher price upon it. The old regret
life more than the young; they do not want to lose all they have
spent in preparing for its enjoyment. At sixty it is cruel to
die when one has not begun to live. Man is credited with a strong
desire for self-preservation, and this desire exists; but we fail
to perceive that this desire, as felt by us, is largely the work