We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it

Seneca the Younger, On the Shortness of Life (49)

Genuine

Yes. In On the Shortness of Life (49), Chapter 1, section 3 (De Brevitate Vitae 1.3).

Found word for word by program in the Latin original and in Aubrey Stewart’s English translation (1889).

The wording people share comes from a later translation; Stewart’s words are underlined below.

Work
On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae), 49
Where
Chapter 1, section 3 (De Brevitate Vitae 1.3)
Found at
Paragraph 2 of the Latin text, 4 of the English
Translation
Aubrey Stewart, 1889

Researched by AI; checked by program against the full text on 31 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check

On the page

¶2 en

To Paulinus.

¶4 en¶2 la
English, Aubrey Stewart, 1889

[…] We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it: life is long enough to carry out the most important projects: we have an ample portion, if we do but arrange the whole of it aright: but when it all runs to waste through luxury and carelessness, when it is not devoted to any good purpose, then at the last we are forced to feel that it is all over, although we never noticed how it glided away.1 Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them. […]

Latin, the original

[…] 2 Inde illa maximi medicorum exclamatio est: “uitam breuem esse, longam artem”. Inde Aristotelis cum rerum natura exigentis minime conueniens sapienti uiro lis: “aetatis illam animalibus tantum indulsisse, ut quina aut dena saecula educerent, homini in tam multa ac magna genito tanto citeriorem terminum stare.” 3 Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus. Satis longa uita et in maximarum rerum consummationem large data est, si tota bene collocaretur; sed ubi per luxum ac neglegentiam diffluit, ubi nulli bonae rei impenditur, ultima demum necessitate cogente, quam ire non intelleximus transisse sentimus. 4 Ita est: non accipimus breuem uitam sed fecimus, nec inopes eius sed prodigi sumus. […]

Where it comes from

The English usually shared for ‘Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus’ comes from a modern translation in copyright, most likely C. D. N. Costa’s (Seneca, Dialogues and Letters, Penguin Classics, 1997; reprinted as On the Shortness of Life, Penguin Great Ideas, 2004): The Marginalian (Maria Popova, 2014) quotes it, linking the Penguin Great Ideas edition, which Open Library lists as translated by Costa. The book itself was not seen here, so the translator is not confirmed. It is not stored here. Aubrey Stewart’s public-domain translation (1889) is quoted instead; John W. Basore’s Loeb translation (1932), quoted on Wikiquote, is different again.

The scene

The opening of the essay, addressed to Paulinus. Seneca recalls the common complaint that nature gives us too short a span, voiced even by great men: the physician’s saying that life is short and art long, and Aristotle’s grievance that animals outlive us. He answers it with this sentence, and goes on: we do not receive a short life but make it short, we are not poor in days but wasteful of them, as a fortune is squandered by a bad master and grows under a good one.

What it means

Life is long enough if it is used well; it feels short because we let most of it slip away on things that do not matter.

Often misread

Often read as a productivity slogan, a call to fill every hour. Seneca’s target is the busy man: the essay argues that the occupied, chasing office, money and other people’s business, are the ones who waste their lives, and that time is best spent on philosophy and on oneself.

Topics

Life, Time, Wisdom

Related quotes

Sources

Cite it

Seneca the Younger, On the Shortness of Life (49), Chapter 1, section 3 (De Brevitate Vitae 1.3), translated by Aubrey Stewart (1889). Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/it-is-not-that-we-have-a-short-time-to-live/ (31 October 2026).

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