MARCUS: As our birth brings to us the beginning, so may death bring the end of all things. As nothing belonged to us before we were born, so nothing will belong to us after we are dead.

[Ut, quo modo initium nobis rerum omnium ortus noster adferat, sic exitum mors, ut nihil pertinuit ad nos ante ortum, sic nihil post mortem pertinebit.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 1, ch. 38 (1.38) / sec. 91 (1.91) (45 BC) [tr. Peabody (1886)]
    (Source)

(Source (Latin)). Other translations:

As our Birth giveth us an entrance into the business of this World, so Death should give our Exit from it. Which, as before our Birth, it nothing concern'd us, so neither shall it after Death.
[tr. Wase (1643)]

As our birth was the beginning of things with us, death will be the end; and as we were no ways concerned with them before we were born, so we shall have none after we are dead.
[tr. Main (1824)]

As our birth is the entrance of all things for us, so death is the exit; as before we saw the light nothing belonged to us, so nothing will belong to us after the scene is closed.
[tr. Otis (1839)]

Just in the same manner as our birth was the beginning of things with us, so death will be the end; and as we were no ways concerned with anything before we were born, so neither shall we be after we are dead.
[tr. Yonge (1853)]

As birth introduces us to the beginning of things, so does death to the end, it follows that, as before [birth] there was nothing which concerned us, so there will be nothing that concerns us after death.
[tr. Black (1889)]

[...] As we possessed nothing before birth, so will nothing remain to us after death.
[ed. Harbottle (1897)]

Our birth brings the beginning of everything for us, so death brings the end: then just as nothing affected us before [birth], so nothing will affect us after death.
[tr. Douglas (1985)]

Just as birth is the beginning of everything for us, so death is the end, and just as nothing mattered to us before we were born, nothing will matter after we die.
[tr. Habinek (1996)]

Just as our birth brings the beginning of all things, so our death brings the end of all, then just as nothing affected us before birth, so nothing will affect us after death.
[tr. Davie (2017)]


 
Added on 17-Sep-26 | Last updated 17-Sep-26
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