A quote
It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill. That is why I regard the words of the well-known Rhodian as most unmanly. This person was thrown into a cage by his tyrant, and fed there like some wild animal. And when a certain man advised him to end his life by fasting, he replied: “A man may hope for anything while he has life.”
Seneca·Letter 70 — On the Proper Tlme to Slip the Cable (§6)·trans. Gummere