Not only the argument of reason invites us to it--for why should we fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented?
-- but, also, seeing we are threatened by so many sorts of death, is it not infinitely worse eternally to fear them all, than once to undergo one of them?
And what matters it, when it shall happen, since it is inevitable?
To him that told Socrates, "The thirty tyrants have sentenced thee to death"; "And nature them," said he .-- [Socrates was not condemned to death by the thirty tyrants, but by the Athenians.-Diogenes Laertius, ii.35.]-- What a ridiculous thing it is to trouble ourselves about taking the only step that is to deliver us from all trouble! As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so in our death is the death of all things included.
And therefore to lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago.
Death is the beginning of another life.

So did we weep, and so much it cost us to enter into this, and so did we put off our former veil in entering into it.

Nothing can be a grievance that is but once.

Is it reasonable so long to fear a thing that will so soon be despatched?
Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

Aristotle tells us that there are certain little beasts upon the banks of the river Hypanis, that never live above a day: they which die at eight of the clock in the morning, die in their youth, and those that die at five in the evening, in their decrepitude: which of us would not laugh to see this moment of continuance put into the consideration of weal or woe?
The most and the least, of ours, in comparison with eternity, or yet with the duration of mountains, rivers, stars, trees, and even of some animals, is no less ridiculous .-- [ Seneca, Consol.