What does this quote mean?

“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”

Seneca warns that postponement is itself a use of finite life: waiting for a more convenient future can become the very way the available present is lost.

Source note: Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 1, “On Saving Time,” Richard M. Gummere translation. The line follows Seneca’s advice to hold every hour and precedes his claim that nothing is truly ours except time. Letter 1 remains part of the single normalized Moral Letters work family.

“They spend life in making ready to live!”

Preparation becomes self-defeating when it permanently replaces the life it was supposed to make possible.

Source note: On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; Seneca describes people who stay busy preparing for a future life.

“Postponement is the greatest waste of life.”

Delay is costly because it exchanges a real day for a future that remains uncertain and therefore cannot be spent yet.

Source note: On the Shortness of Life, Chapter IX; sentence in Seneca’s criticism of distant plans that steal the present.

“Do every act of thy life as if it were the last.”

Treating action as potentially final concentrates attention on doing the present duty carefully instead of postponing integrity or focus.

Source note: Meditations, Book II, section 5, George Long translation; this clause occurs inside a longer instruction about dignity and reason.

“Never leave that till tomorrow, which you can do to-day.”

The maxim turns prompt action into a habit: work that can reasonably be completed now should not be needlessly transferred to an uncertain tomorrow.

Source note: The Way to Wealth; a Poor Richard maxim on delay and useful employment of time.

“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years.”

Mortality is used to challenge postponement: limited time makes present conduct more important than fantasies of an indefinitely extended future.

Source note: Meditations, Book IV, section 17, in George Long’s translation.