Every Man Dies, But Not Every Man Truly Lives

Ascribed to Walt Whitman or William Wallace (Braveheart):

Every man dies, but not every man truly lives.

The story of Similis, captain of the guard for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, is illustrative of this point. I would add for clarification that it is not cloistering oneself from the world which is to be commended, but rather the life redeemed and, forsaking vanity, spent for God in this world.

Charles Buck, Anecdotes: Religious, Moral, and Entertaining, p. 93:

Similis, captain of the guards to Adrian, got leave to quit that emperor's service, and spent the last seven years of his life in rural retirement. At his death, he ordered the following inscription on his tomb: "Here lies Similis, who lived but seven years, though he died at sixty-seven." Our true age, and our real life, are to be dated from the time of our abstraction from the world, and of our conversation to God.

Onward (Vol. 2, 1869), p. 95:

Life is not always to be estimated by years. "Here he lies who was so many years, but lived only seven," was the inscription on the tomb of Similis of Xiphilim. The writer of the epitaph correctly estimated the life of Similis, for the great man lived usefully but seven years.

John Carstares (Carstairs), Preface, p. xii, to James Durham, The Blessed Death of Those Who Die in the Lord:

The story is told of one Similis, captain of the Roman emperor Hadrian's guard, who had lived long in the city and at court, and had some seven years before his death retired to a private country house, where he thought that he had enjoyed himself more, being freed from the avocations, distractions, noise, and cumbersome converse of a court life. He commanded that after his death it should be written over his grave, "Here lies Similis who was many years old, but lived only seven." How many professors of religion are there, I say, who may thus sadly and sorrowfully complain of themselves when they come to die, "Ah! we have been here many years, but have either none at all, or but very few years." For that life that is not lived to God, and to the honor and glory of Jesus Christ, is not at all worthy of the denomination of "life," since we are, all the time we live so, but dead while we live.

Thomas Adams, Sermon XXXI: "The Two Sons; or, The Dissolute Conferred With the Hypocrite," in Works, Vol. 2, p. 89:

I have read of a courtier that, wearied with that few in these days will be wearied of, -- glorious vanities, gallant miseries, -- retired himself into the country, where he lived privately seven years. Dying, he caused this epitaph to be engraven on his tomb: Hic jacet Similis, cujus aetas multorum annorum fuit: ipse duntaxat septem annos virit; --

'Here lies Similis, whose age
Saw many years on this world's stage.
His own account is far less given,
He says he only lived seven;'

esteeming the compass of his life no longer than his retiring himself from worldly vanities. So it may be said of a wicked old man: Non dia vixit, sed diu fuit, -- He hath not lived long, but been long upon the earth. After this rule many good men have reckoned their years: not from the time of their birth, but of their new birth; accounting only from that day when they were supernaturally born again, not when naturally born into the world: as if all that time were lost which an unsanctified life took up.