Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 97.3 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 590; tr. Edmund Hill):

All our other goods and ills are uncertain; death is the only certainty. What am I saying? A child is conceived; perhaps it's born, perhaps it miscarries. Thus it's uncertain. Perhaps it grows up, perhaps it doesn't; perhaps it reaches a ripe old age, perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps it will be rich, perhaps poor; perhaps it will be honored, perhaps humiliated; perhaps it will have children, perhaps it won't; perhaps it will marry a wife, perhaps it won't; and anything else you like to mention among possible good things. Take a look too at the bad things. Perhaps it's sickly, perhaps it isn't; perhaps it's bitten by a snake, perhaps it isn't; perhaps it's devoured by a wild animal, perhaps it isn't. And take a look at all conceivable ills; in every case, perhaps it will happen, perhaps it won't. But can you say, "Perhaps he'll die, perhaps he won't"? It's like doctors, when they examine an illness, and realize it's mortal, they make this sort of pronouncement: "He's dying, he can't avoid it." From the moment you're born, it has to be said, "You can't avoid it." No sooner born, than you begin to be ill. When you're dead, that's the end of the illness; but you don't know whether you are getting into a worse one.

Cetera nostra et bona et mala incerta sunt; sola mors certa est. Quid est quod dico? Conceptus est puer; forte nascitur, forte aborsum facit. Ita incertum est: forte crescit, forte non crescit; forte senescit, forte non senescit; forte dives erit, forte pauper; forte honoratus, forte humiliatus; forte habebit filios, forte non habebit; forte ducet uxorem, forte non ducet; et quidquid aliud nominaveris in bonis. Respice et ad mala: forte aegrotat, forte non aegrotat; forte a serpente percutitur, forte non percutitur; forte a bestia devoratur, forte non devoratur. Et respice omnia mala: ubique est, forte erit, forte non erit. Numquid potes dicere: Forte moritur, forte non moritur? Quomodo medici, quando inspexerint valetudinem, et mortiferam esse cognoverint, hoc pronuntiant: Moritur, inde non evadit. Ex quo nascitur homo, dicendum est: Non evadit. Quando natus est, aegrotare coepit. Quando mortuus fuerit, finit quidem aegritudinem; sed nescit utrum pergat in peiorem.