Name anyone to me who puts a price on time, who values the day, who understands that he is dying each and every day. For we deceive ourselves by looking for death ahead of us, whereas a great part of death has already taken place. Whatever part of life is behind us is possessed by death. So, embrace every hour. In this way you will have to depend less on tomorrow if you seize hold of today. While life is being postponed, it rushes past.

From Seneca’s Letter 1 (Book I) in Selected Letters, translation by Elaine Fantham, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 3.