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Who really said it

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it

Written by Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher & statesman
Verified In copyright

This is the documented opening thesis of Seneca’s essay On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae 1.3), which in Latin reads “Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus.” The attribution to Seneca is not in doubt; the exact English is a translation — “waste much of it” matches John W. Basore’s 1932 Loeb rendering, while “short time to live” is C. D. N. Costa’s Penguin phrasing (in place of Basore’s “short space of time”).

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it” Seneca, On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae), 1.3 — trans. John W. Basore, Loeb Classical Library, 1932. Latin: "Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus."

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library), for the John W. Basore translation). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Work
On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae), §1.3
Author
Seneca the Younger, addressed to Pompeius Paulinus
Written
Roman, c. AD 49
Translation
“waste much of it” follows John W. Basore, Loeb Classical Library, 1932

Latin (1.3): “Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus. Satis longa uita et in maximarum rerum consummationem large data est, si tota bene collocaretur.” — rendered by Basore (1932) as “It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough … if it were all well invested.”

The Latin has no word for “to live”; translators supply it. Popular English versions vary the verb — “waste much of it” (Basore), “waste a lot of it” (Costa), “lose a great deal of it” (Stewart).

Latin text of De Brevitate Vitae at The Latin Library

How we traced it

In copyright

Seneca’s Latin original is ancient and long in the public domain. But the exact English wording here is a translator’s work: the distinctive “waste much of it” matches John W. Basore’s 1932 Loeb Classical Library translation, published after 1930 and still under copyright in the United States. Public-domain renderings (e.g. Aubrey Stewart, 1889) phrase the sentence differently.

Fact-check

A note on the wording

This one is correctly credited to Seneca — unusual for a famous-name quote. The catch is the English: Seneca wrote in Latin, and the popular sentence is a translator’s rendering that no single standard edition reproduces word-for-word.

The exact English is a blend of translations Wording

“Waste much of it” is John W. Basore’s 1932 Loeb wording, but Basore writes “short space of time,” not “short time to live.” The popular form pairs Basore’s verb with the “short time to live” phrasing of C. D. N. Costa’s Penguin translation.

Circulating variants Variants

You will also see “waste a lot of it” (C. D. N. Costa, Penguin) and “lose a great deal of it” (Aubrey Stewart, 1889) — all translating the same Latin sentence.

The thought is genuinely Seneca’s, from On the Shortness of Life 1.3: “Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus.”

Context

Why it mattered

On the Shortness of Life opens by refusing a common complaint — that nature gives us too few years. Seneca’s inversion is the whole point of the essay: the trouble is not the length of life but our habit of frittering it away on ambition, busyness and other people’s demands.

Written to his kinsman Pompeius Paulinus, then in charge of Rome’s grain supply, the essay reads as a gentle argument that a life “well invested” is long enough for anything worth doing.

“Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Time Mortality

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

On the Shortness of Life (Latin)thelatinlibrary.com

The original Latin of De Brevitate Vitae, including the 1.3 sentence this quote translates.
Dialogues — On the Shortness of Life (Stewart, PD)standardebooks.org

Aubrey Stewart’s public-domain 1889 English translation of the full essay.
Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae 1.1sententiaeantiquae.com

Classicist blog giving the Latin opening and a translation of the key sentence.
Seneca on the Shortness of Life (Penguin / C. D. N. Costa)themarginalian.org

Maria Popova’s essay quoting the Penguin (Costa) translation, whose “short time to live … waste a lot of it” is the closest published source of the popular wording.
Lucius Annaeus Senecaen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote collection of sourced Seneca quotations for cross-checking.

The true author

About Seneca

Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman & dramatist

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (“Seneca the Younger”) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and tutor to the emperor Nero. His moral essays and Letters to Lucilius are among the most quoted works of Stoicism. On the Shortness of Life, addressed to Pompeius Paulinus around AD 49, argues that life is not too short — we simply squander it. Ordered to take his own life by Nero in AD 65, he did so with Stoic composure.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life” (De Brevitate Vitae), 1.3, in Moral Essays, Vol. II, trans. John W. Basore, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann, 1932). Latin: “Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus.”

MLA (9th ed.)

Seneca. Moral Essays. Vol. 2, translated by John W. Basore, William Heinemann, 1932, sec. 1.3.

APA (7th ed.)

Seneca. (1932). Moral essays (Vol. 2) (J. W. Basore, Trans.). William Heinemann. (Original work published c. 49 CE)

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