"In the end ...."

In the end

these things matter most:

How well did you love?

How fully did you live?

How deeply did you let go?

Buddha

"... idleness ...."

… idleness – both the idleness that is forced upon us and the idleness we choose – is actually one of old age’s greatest gifts.  It gives us time for that wondrous human activity, play.

Epicurus

"A man should always ...."

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

Joseph Addison

"Slowly, slowly wisdom gathers"

Slowly, slowly wisdom gathers:

Golden dust in the afternoon,

Somewhere between the sun and me,

Sometimes so near that I can see,

Yet never settling, late or soon.

Would that it did, and a rug of gold

Spread west of me a mile or more:

Not large, but so that I might lie

Face up, between the earth and sky,

And know what none has known before.

Then I would tell as best I could

The secrets of that shining place:

The web of the world, how thick, how thin,

How firm, with all things folded in;

How ancient, and how full of grace.

Mark Van Doren

"Do not spoil what you have ...."

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

Epicurus