“Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.”

Source: Meditations

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you …" by Marcus Aurelius?

Marcus Aurelius400

Emperor of Ancient Rome 121–180

Related quotes

“Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Meditations. iv. 17.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live; and as you would if you knew you must die tomorrow.”

Ann Lee (1736–1784) English Shaker leader

The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875), p. 76

“Not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you. Death overshadows you. While you're alive and able—be good.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book IV, 17

“Live for something! Do good and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of the thousands you come in contact with, year by year, and you will never be forgotten. Your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind, as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Misattributed, P. 243. in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895). This is actually a quote from The golden chain; or, The Christian graces illustrated and enforced (1855) by John Harvey