The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

The saying links anxiety about death to an unfinished or constricted way of living: if one is not truly engaged in life—taking risks, pursuing meaning, and accepting its limits—death appears as an intolerable theft. Conversely, “living fully” implies a kind of moral and psychological readiness: when life has been met honestly and actively, death can be faced without panic because less is left unlived or unsaid. The aphorism also reverses a common assumption by treating fear of death as a symptom rather than a primary cause, suggesting that the remedy is not morbid contemplation but fuller participation in life.