Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales 1.4:
It was hardly worth being born if I were not admitted to these things. For, what reason is there that I should be glad to be placed among the number of the living? So that I can swallow food and drink? So that I can stuff this needy and languid body which will perish if it doesn’t get filled? So that I can live as a minister to my own sick self? So that I can spend my time fearing the death for which all of us are born? Take away this inestimable good: life is not worth so much that I should sweat for it, that I should work myself into a heat for it.
Nisi ad haec admitterer, non fuerat nasci. Quid enim erat, cur in numero uiuentium me positum esse gauderem? an ut cibos et potiones percolarem? ut hoc corpus causarium ac fluidum, periturumque nisi subinde impleatur, sarcirem, et uiuerem aegri minister? ut mortem timerem, cui omnes nascimur? Detrahe hoc inaestimabile bonum, non est uita tanti, ut sudem, ut aestuem.
