“Who wants to be a hundred? What's the point of it? A short life and a merry one is far better than a long one sustained by fear, caution, and perpetual medical surveillance.”
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Henry Miller 187
American novelist 1891–1980Related quotes

“I am all for the short and merry life.”
FitzGerald's epitaph, originally a statement in a letter to Frederick Tennyson (31 December 1850); Letters of Edward FitzGerald (1894), p. 261.

Letter to Eileen Danniheisser (1953), quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel by Banesh Hoffman (1973), p. 261 http://books.google.com/books?id=sdDaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22think+with+fear%22#search_anchor. The exact date, or the name of his correspondent, is not given in the snippet of the book available online, but the quote appears after the letter to the Queen of Belgium from 12 January 1953, and is prefaced by "Nine months later, in words that recall the beliefs of an early atomic speculator, the Roman poet Lucretius, Einstein had written to an inquirer", followed by the quote. The name "Eileen Danniheisser" is given in Time: Volume 144, where it is mentioned in the snippets here http://books.google.com/books?id=JDAnAQAAIAAJ&q=%22obsessive+thoughts%22#search_anchor and here http://books.google.com/books?id=JDAnAQAAIAAJ&q=%22think+with+fear%22#search_anchor that she had written Einstein "about her obsessive thoughts of death as a child".
1950s

“Better to live one year as a tiger, than a hundred as sheep.”
Madonna: 50 Years Of Wit And Wisdom, The Insider http://www.theinsider.com/news/1130430_Madonna_50_Years_Of_Wit_And_Wisdom,

“It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.”
Source: The Secret History

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 364
General

“It is far better to put away fear than to be driven by it.”
Source: The Riddle