Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever

This is a wonderful illustration or how different groups can see common wisdom in radically different views.

This euphonious aphorism was recently used in a TED lecture and immortalized by Symphony of Science and YouTube. Usually atributed to Gandhi (the Mahatma) , it actually goes back at least to Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636 in FPA Book of Quotations (1952) by Franklin Pierce Adams).

To rationalists, it is a fundamental truism, reminding us that our existence is precious and fleeting and made wonderful by rational inquiry and understanding. But to Isodore, who was perhaps the last of the ancient Christian philosophers, it was an equally fundamental truism meaning the exact opposite, that mortal life is an affliction, rendered endurable by piety and study of the scripture in preparation for eternity.

Both are right, even though both cannot be right, and handhi and Mohammed, who actually said very similar things, were just Johnny come lately.

Incidentally, the attribution to Ghandi is probably due more than anything to popular awareness (Isodore is not well known), illustrating yet another truth—opinion does not grow more correct with popularity.