Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.

— Euripides Alcestis (-438)

μάτην ἄρ᾿ οἱ γέροντες εὔχονται θανεῖν,
γῆρας ψέγοντες καὶ μακρὸν χρόνον βίου·
ἢν δ᾿ ἐγγὺς ἔλθῃ θάνατος, οὐδεὶς βούλεται
θνῄσκειν, τὸ γῆρας δ᾿ οὐκέτ᾿ ἔστ᾿ αὐτοῖς βαρύ.

Original text (Ancient Greek)

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Events will take their course, it is no good of being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.

Humility, a sense of reverence before the sons of heaven — of all the prizes that a mortal man might win, these, I say, are wisest; these are best.

Bacchae (-405)

When good men die their goodness does not perish,
But lives though they are gone. As for the bad,
All that was theirs dies and is buried with them.

No! a Spartan maid could not be chaste, e'en if she would, who leaves her home and bares her limbs and lets her robe float free, to share with youths their races and their sports.

Andromache (-425)

One thing only, they say, competes in value with life, the possession of a heart blameless and good.

Hippolytus (-428)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Euripides (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.

Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.

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