It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer.

It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer. It is in vain that engineers devise faster and easier means of travel if the new sights that we see are merely sorted and understood in terms of old prejudices. It is in vain that we get the power of the atom if we are just to continue in the rut of blowing people up.

It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer.

It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer. It is in vain that engineers devise faster and easier means of travel if the new sights that we see are merely sorted and understood in terms of old prejudices. It is in vain that we get the power of the atom if we are just to continue in the rut of blowing people up.

In my mind, there are few sins so egregious as extending life without health. This is important. It does not matter if we can extend lifespans if we cannot extend healthspans to an equal extent. And so if we're going to do the former, we have an absolute moral obligation to do the latter.

We live to improve, or we live in vain

As a species, we are living much longer than ever. But not much better. Not at all. Over the past century we have gained additional years, but not additional life — not life worth living anyway.5

we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it…

It is not that we are given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.

The irony is that the healthier Western society becomes, the more medicine it craves... Immense pressures are created – by the medical profession, by the media, by the high pressure advertising of pharmaceutical companies to expand the diagnosis of treatable illnesses. Scares are created, people are bamboozled into lab tests, often of dubious reliability. Thanks to diagnostic creep or leap, ever more disorders are revealed, extensive and expensive treatments are then urged … [This] is endemic to a system in which an expanding medical establishment, faced with a healthier population, is driven to medicalising normal events, converting risks into diseases and treating trivial complaints with fancy procedures... The law of diminishing returns necessarily applies. Extending life becomes feasible, but it may be a life exposed to degrading neglect as resources grow overstretched. What an ignominious destiny if the future of medicine turns into bestowing meagre increments of unenjoyed life?

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?

It is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste a lot of it.

Has anyone ever added a single hour to the length of his life by worrying about it?