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Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius

Seneca,

Margaret Graver (Translation)

Anthony A. Long (Translation)

4.33 · Rating details · 17,842 ratings · 794 reviews

The Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) recorded his moral philosophy and reflections on life as a highly original kind of correspondence. Letters on Ethics includes vivid descriptions of town and country life in Nero’s Italy, discussions of poetry and oratory, and philosophical training for Seneca’s friend Lucilius. This volume, the first complete English ...more

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Hardcover, 604 pages

Published November 20th 2015 by University of Chicago Press (first published 64)

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Jan 03, 2015 Glenn Russell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

These letters of Roman philosopher Seneca are a treasure chest for anybody wishing to incorporate philosophic wisdom into their day-to-day living. By way of example, below are a few Seneca gems along with my brief comments:

“Each day acquire something which will help you to face poverty, or death, and other ills as well. After running over a lot of different thoughts, pick out one to be digested throughout the day.” -------- I’m completely with Seneca on this point. I approach the study of philosophy primarily for self-transformation. There is no let-up in the various challenges life throws at us – what we can change is the level of wisdom we bring to facing our challenges.

“It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.” ---------- This is the perennial philosophy from Aristotle to Epicurus to Epictetus to Buddha: we have to face up to our predicament as humans; we are in the realm of desire. The goal of living as a philosopher is to deal with our desires in such a way that we can maintain our tranquility and joy.

“But if you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him (or her) as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.” --------- Friendship was one key idea in the ancient world that modern philosophy seems to have forgotten. Seneca outlines how we must first test and judge people we consider as possible friends, but once we become friends with someone, then an abiding and complete trust is required.

“The very name of philosophy however modest the manner in which it is pursued, is unpopular enough as it is: imagine what the reaction would be if we started dissociating ourselves from the conventions of society. Inwardly everything should be different but our outward face should conform with the crowd. Our clothes should not be gaudy, yet they should now be dowdy either. . . . Let our aim be a way of life not diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the mob.”. ---------- The call of true philosophy isn’t an outward display but an internal attitude. There is a long, noble tradition of living the life of a philosopher going back to ancient Greece and Rome, that has, unfortunately, been mostly lost to us in the West. It is time to reclaim our true heritage.

“You may be banished to the end of the earth, and yet in whatever outlandish corner of the world you may find yourself stationed, you will find that place, whatever it may be like, a hospitable home. Where you arrive does not matter so much as what sort of person you are when you arrive there." -------- This is the ultimate Stoic worldview: our strength of character is more important that the particular life situation we find ourselves in. Very applicable in our modern world; although, chances are we will not be banished to another country, many of us will one day be banished to a nursing home.

“This rapidity of utterance recalls a person running down a slope and unable to stop where he meant to, being carried on instead a lot farther than he intended, at the mercy of his body’s momentum; it is out of control, and unbecoming to philosophy, which should be placing her words, not throwing them around.” --------- The ancient world had many people who talked a mile a minute, an unending gush of chatter. The Greco-Roman philosophers such as Seneca and Plutarch warn against garrulousness. Rather, we should mark our words well. From my own experience, when I hear long-winded pontifications, I feel like running away.

“The next thing I knew the book itself had charmed me into a deeper reading of it there and then. . . . It was so enjoyable that I found myself held and drawn on until I ended up having read it right through to the end without a break. All the time the sunshine was inviting me out, hunger prompting me to eat, the weather threatening to break, but I gulped it all down in one sitting.” --------- Ah, the experience of being pulled into a good book! When we come upon such a book, go with it! ...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Ryan Holiday rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I tore this book to pieces. My copy is overflowing with tabbed pages and highlighted lines and notes in the margins. Seneca of course, is a fascinating figure. Gregory Hays once said about Marcus Aurelius that "not being a tyrant was something he had to work at one day at a time" and often, Seneca lost that battle. He was the Cardinal Richelieu behind Nero. He sat back and enjoyed the spoils of his student who had clearly lost his way--at least Aristotle didn't profit from Alexander's lust for I tore this book to pieces. My copy is overflowing with tabbed pages and highlighted lines and notes in the margins. Seneca of course, is a fascinating figure. Gregory Hays once said about Marcus Aurelius that "not being a tyrant was something he had to work at one day at a time" and often, Seneca lost that battle. He was the Cardinal Richelieu behind Nero. He sat back and enjoyed the spoils of his student who had clearly lost his way--at least Aristotle didn't profit from Alexander's lust for power. However, there is some interesting evidence put forth in a paper titled - Seneca: The Case of the Opulent Stoic in which Lydia Motto presents that what we know of Seneca's reputation comes almost entirely from a single, less than objective source. And in fact, if we can trust the way in which Seneca faced his forced suicide there was not much difference between practice and philosophy.

The book is profoundly insightful, it calls you to action, and it has that 'quit your whining--this is life' attitude that so defines the Roman Stoics. This is by no means an all inclusive list but is Seneca on some important topics:

On doing more than consuming:
He should be delivering himself of such sayings, not memorizing them. It is disgraceful that a man who is old or in sight of old age should have wisdom deriving solely from his notebook. 'Zeno said this.' And what have you said? 'Cleanthes said that.' What have you said? How much longer are you going to serve under others? Assume authority over yourself and utter something that may be handed down to posterity. Produce something from your own resources.

On endurance:
Life's no soft affair. It's a long road you've started on: you can't but expect to have slips and knocks and falls, and get tired and openly wish--a lie--for death.

On freedom from perturbation:
Show me a man who isn't a slave; one who is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear. I could show you a man who has been a Consul who is a slave to his 'little old woman', a millionaire who is the slave of a little girl in domestic service. And there is no state of slavery more disgraceful than one which is self-imposed.

On quoting what you read:
There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with. I shall send you, accordingly, the actual books themselves, and to save you a lot of trouble hunting all over the place for passages likely to be of use to you, I shall mark the passages so that you can turn straight away to the words I approve and admire."
...more

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Feb 27, 2014 Roy Lotz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: eurotrip, oldie-but-goodie, footnotes-to-plato, person-of-letters

Philosophy is good advice; and no one can give advice at the top of his lungs.

One of the most persistent criticisms made of modern philosophy is that it isn’t useful. The critics have a point. Modern philosophy largely concerns itself with a variety of theoretical problems. Even though many of these problems do have practical ramifications, many do not; and regardless, the debates can often get so technical, so heated, and so abstract, that it is difficult to see modern philosophy as the path to wisdom it once professed to be. People don’t have time or patience for logic-chopping; they want useful advice.

Those of this persuasion will be happy to find a forerunner and a sage in Seneca. As the opening quote shows, he conceived philosophy to be, above all, the giving of good advice. Seneca thus finds a perfect vehicle for his thought in the form of the letter. Although this book apparently consists of the private correspondence between Seneca and his friend Lucilius, it is obvious from the first page that these were expressly written for publication and posterity. This book should rather be thought of as a collection of moral essays and exhortations.

Even in translation, Seneca is a master stylist. He is by turns intimate, friendly, self-deprecating, nagging, mundane, and profound. He has an enormous talent for epigram; he can squeeze a lifetime into a line, compress a philosophy into a phrase. He is also remarkably modern in his tolerant, cosmopolitan, and informal attitude. Indeed I often found it difficult to believe that the book was written by a real Roman. Montaigne and Emerson obviously learned a great deal from Seneca; you might even say they ripped him off. The only thing that marks Seneca as ancient is his comparative lack of introspection. While Montaigne and Emerson are mercurial, wracked by self-doubt, driven by contrary tides of emotion, Seneca is calm, self-composed, confident.

Perhaps because of his professed aversion to abstract argument, Seneca is not a systematic thinker. Emerson wrote “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” and Seneca apparently would agree, for there are many inconsistencies to be found in these pages. Sometimes God is conceived of as an impersonal order of the universe, and at other times a personal deity; sometimes Lucilius is advised not to take the opinions of friends and family into account, other times to do so. Seneca’s metaphysical arguments are weak and confused affairs; he is not one for disputation. But for all this, there is a core of good sense contained within these pages, which Seneca himself summarizes:

No man is good by chance. Virtue is something which must be learned. Pleasure is low, petty, to be deemed worthless, shared even by dumb animals—the tiniest and meanest of whom fly towards pleasure. Glory is an empty and fleeting thing, lighter than air. Poverty is an evil to no man unless he kick’s against it. Death is not an evil; why need you ask? Death alone is the equal privilege of mankind.

Like Marcus Aurelius, a prominent statesman in troubled times, Seneca is very concerned with how to be happy in spite of circumstances. There is no satisfaction to be had through external goods, like fame and riches, because these cannot be gotten unless fortune is kind, and fortune is notoriously fickle. Even in good times, this can only lead you into an empty, meaningless competition, valuing yourself for something that isn’t really yours, causing you to ceaselessly measure yourself against others. You must rather become content with yourself, taking pleasure in life whether fortune smiles or frowns: “We have reached the heights if we know what it is that we find joy in and if we have not placed our happiness in externals.”

Of course, this is easier said than done, and Seneca does not have a fully worked-out system for reaching this state. He offers, instead, an unsystematic mass of advice. It is here that Seneca is most charming and helpful, for most other philosophers would not deign to offer such workaday recommendations and observations. Here is Seneca on negative thinking:

The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to evil; it twists into the worst construction some word of doubtful meaning; or it fancies some personal grudge to be more serious than it really is, considering not how angry the enemy is, but to what lengths he may go if he is angry.

It is in these sections, of plain, friendly advice, that I think Seneca is at his best. Certainly not all of his advice is good; every reader will pick and choose what suits them best. But much of Seneca's advice is timeless, and phrased in deathless prose. Most refreshing is Seneca’s insistence that his advice is for action and not reflection. This is more than slightly ironic, considering that Seneca is often accused of being a hypocrite whose lifestyle was far removed from his doctrines; but, to quote a modern philosopher, “There is no contradiction, or even paradox, in describing someone as bad at practising what he is good at preaching.” So preach on, Seneca.
...more

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Apr 02, 2015 João Fernandes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, greek-roman-classics

I have to admit, I started this book with some hesitations.

I had read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations (easily one of my favourite books) and Epictetus' Discourses, the other two big pillars of Stoic philosophy. I also knew, from gossip girl Suetonius, how Seneca was a Stoic more in name than in practice.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor, the ruler of the known world , and yet he embraced the Stoic ideals like no other, feeling repulsion for his own political power and trying to rule Rome in ...more

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May 07, 2015 Parthiban Sekar rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, translated-texts, stoicism

No man’s good by accident. Virtue has to be learnt. Pleasure is a poor and petty thing. No value should be set on it: it’s something we share with dumb animals – the minutest, most insignificance creatures scutter after it. Glory’s an empty changeable thing, as fickle as the weather. Poverty’s no evil to anyone unless he kicks against it. Death is not an evil. What is it then? The one law mankind has that is free of all discrimination. Superstition is an idiotic heresy: it fears those it should ...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Evan Leach rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: roman-literature, philosophy, 0-999, letters

Along with his tragedies, treatises and longer dialogues, the philosopher Seneca wrote 124 letters addressed to his friend Lucilius. Whether these letters were actually sent is unknown, but their style indicates that they were intended for publication at some point. These letters are really mini-essays in disguise, discussing Seneca’s Stoic beliefs and his outlook on life in general. This collection contains about a third of Seneca’s surviving letters, some of which are abridged.

For readers Along with his tragedies, treatises and longer dialogues, the philosopher Seneca wrote 124 letters addressed to his friend Lucilius. Whether these letters were actually sent is unknown, but their style indicates that they were intended for publication at some point. These letters are really mini-essays in disguise, discussing Seneca’s Stoic beliefs and his outlook on life in general. This collection contains about a third of Seneca’s surviving letters, some of which are abridged.

For readers interested in Stoicism and Roman philosophy generally, I think these letters do just as good a job (if not better) of expressing Seneca’s beliefs as his dialogues do, and are more pleasant reading to boot. Stoicism (which had been around much longer than Seneca) held that men should live ‘in accordance with nature,’ learning to live in conformity with the world as it is and accepting whatever fate should bring their way. People should value and cultivate reason, and discipline the pleasures and the passions. Only in this way can true happiness be achieved. The duties Stoicism glorified – courage, self-control, simple habits, rationality and obedience to the State – corresponded closely to traditional Roman values, and Stoicism was the most influential philosophy in the Roman world for a long time. To some degree, it contrasted with Epicurean thought, which placed more value on the pursuit of individual pleasure. But in his letters Seneca displayed a remarkably open mind regarding Epicurus and his disciples, and the two schools of thought were not entirely at odds.

Many of the values Stoicism promoted were universal ones with wide appeal. Also, although the Stoics believed in a supreme providence that governed the universe, they were not particularly concerned with how this force was labeled: nature, divine reason, god, destiny, etc. This flexibility helped Stoicism adapt and fit within all kids of belief systems. Interestingly, the early Christian Church (which was very disfavorably disposed to most pagan writings) viewed Seneca as ‘one of them’ for this reason. This popularity was to continue into medieval times – in the Inferno Dante placed Seneca in Limbo, the highest place a non-Christian could aspire to, and Queen Elizabeth I “did much admire Senca’s wholesome advisings.”

However, Seneca has had his critics too over the centuries. He preached simple living and a rejection of luxury in his writings, but Seneca was one of the most powerful men in Rome and one of the wealthiest in the Western world during his lifetime. He was Emperor Nero’s chief advisor, and ‘the real master of the world’ for a while according to one modern writer. As chief imperial advisor, he almost certainly assisted Nero in the murder of the emperor’s own mother. Wealth and virtue are certainly not mutually exclusive, but extravagent wealth, advising a tyrant and being an accessory to murder do not scream good Stoic living. Whether Seneca lacked the courage of his own convictions, or was unable to practice what he preached, is at least in doubt. Also, Seneca is rarely (if ever) praised as a groundbreaking philosophical thinker. He did not invent Stoicism, but instead “spiritualized and humanized it” in his writings. Readers expecting Plato or Aristotle will probably be disappointed.

But readers interested in learning about Stoicism in general will be well served by this book. As I said earlier, I thought these letters were on the whole better than Seneca’s longer dialogues (which are not really ‘dialogues’ at all in any traditional sense, with one exception). As an introduction to Stoic philosophy, which was an important school of thought in the Greco-Roman world and beyond, you could do a lot worse. 3.5 stars. ...more

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Dec 12, 2019 Simon Ri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

In his book concering the time he spent in Auschwitz famous austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl came to the conclusion that when you're no longer able to change the situation you find yourself in, you are challenged to change yourself. Being a best-selling book this ethos dawned the rebirth of stoicism for a society which is desperately longing for a way to cope with all cruelties life serves up. Seneca provided the philosophical foundations and Frankl knew how to transpose them when being faced ...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-of-antiquity, philosophy

Seneca you wastrel! To teach of stoicism while living in such opulence. Eh-gads! Fabulous writing, I think I blushed unbeckoned during the blushing scene, and stop trying to get us all to give up oysters, they are both erotic and have the potential to profit a pearl or two. Unacceptable I say!

Also very forward thinking in regards to slavery I must say.

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Jul 28, 2018 Simon Robs rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This epistolary glimpse into Roman life between a retiring and reflecting upper echelon diplomat Seneca and a presumably peer and friend lays out in didactic form the tenants of Stoic philosophy as held by those among that elite school of thought. Seneca's tone indicates he's the elder more learned communicant proffering wisdom earned through experience as one in near proximity to both power and servanthood/slavery. He trots out all the main themes and ties them into regular day examples of how This epistolary glimpse into Roman life between a retiring and reflecting upper echelon diplomat Seneca and a presumably peer and friend lays out in didactic form the tenants of Stoic philosophy as held by those among that elite school of thought. Seneca's tone indicates he's the elder more learned communicant proffering wisdom earned through experience as one in near proximity to both power and servanthood/slavery. He trots out all the main themes and ties them into regular day examples of how one ought conduct behavior as well thought processes to gird those actions. For instance how one should treat his slaves - mostly a golden rule aspect albeit master/slave dynamic. Much ado about death and the Socratic example of non-concern over when, how, but rather if it is good or/and satisfactory. To die well is the pinnacle of having lived well in getting there. Virtue must be sought for and learned by first overcoming the desires of self. Topics and antipathies like body/mind, soul/or lack thereof, city/state, ruler/slave, time/infinity are repeatedly woven into his missives like a series of mini-lectures building his overarching all or wholeness. There are fascinating commentaries on everyday life at the top of privileged status including food/drink/entertainment/architecture/dress/sexual mores/travel/etc., Politics gets its due of course. In referring to earlier Greek polity he muses: "Among human beings the highest merit means the highest position. So they used to choose their ruler for his character. (Just like today, right!?) Hence peoples were supremely fortunate when among them a man could never be more powerful than others unless he was a better man than they were. For there is nothing dangerous in a man's having as much power as he likes if he takes the view that he has power to do only what is his duty to do."

Well, so, even if Seneca's right Stoic ways were said to be often at odds with objective reality it doesn't detract from his firm understanding of and efforts to inculcate stoic equanimity as right path. Who can fault human aspiration towards righteousness falling off or short of full enactment. His words as rhetoric makes believable an enduring thought for living as well dying.

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Apr 08, 2017 Erick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ancient-hellenistic-philosophy, philosophy, stoicism

This book was quite good. One would think that a collection of letters would have much material that is of little utility to those outside the correspondents, but that isn't the case.
Seneca was a notable later Stoic. Very little of the first generation of Stoics survive, and we are left with mainly later Stoics like Epictetus, Rufus and Seneca; some may also include Marcus Aurelius to that list as well. Seneca was probably not the typical Stoic; indeed, he actually quotes Epicurus more times in ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Graychin (D. Dalrymple) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It’s an interesting exercise to read Seneca’s letters and Homer’s Iliad at the same time: you get a sense for how arbitrary our categories are. Both of these ostensibly belong to “classical literature,” though eight hundred years separate them. Seneca and we are divided by a gulf of history more than twice that deep, but his world and our own have so much more in common with one another than either shares with the Achaean armies camped on the beach at Troy. Again and again, while marking up my It’s an interesting exercise to read Seneca’s letters and Homer’s Iliad at the same time: you get a sense for how arbitrary our categories are. Both of these ostensibly belong to “classical literature,” though eight hundred years separate them. Seneca and we are divided by a gulf of history more than twice that deep, but his world and our own have so much more in common with one another than either shares with the Achaean armies camped on the beach at Troy. Again and again, while marking up my copy of this book I found myself muttering, “My God, we are still the Romans!”

Letters from a Stoic is a collection of Seneca’s Moral Epistles to Lucilius, superbly introduced, edited, and translated by Robin Campbell. I’d recently read James Romm’s Dying Every Day, a biography of Seneca, which first put me on the scent of the present title. I’d been looking for an entrée to Seneca for a long time, and this was the right one at the right time for me.

Seneca was both a philosopher and a statesman, and while serving as the young Nero’s tutor and defacto regent he was possibly the most powerful man in the western world. Seneca was also a great hypocrite – at least many of his contemporaries thought so. He preached the embrace of poverty while at the same time amassing enormous wealth. He championed a blameless life while abetting or at least turning a blind eye to Nero’s murder of his own brother and other family members. In the end, of course, Nero turned on him too. As an elderly man trying to live quietly in retirement, Seneca was commanded on the emperor’s orders to open his veins and end his own life, and he did so without complaint.

Was Seneca a hypocrite, and would being so make him unworthy of our consideration? Let’s say that Seneca is not for the youthful idealist; he will be better appreciated by someone with at least three or four decades under his belt. Seneca’s life was an especially powerful demonstration of the economizing we all engage in, to one degree or another, when we try to live according to our highest convictions in a world that requires everyone who would not be a monk in a cell to dirty his hands.

These letters (which read more like essays) Seneca wrote in the last years of his life. As they demonstrate, he was well aware of his failures, but they also prove his continued commitment to the life of philosophy – to philosophy as a practical pursuit of wisdom, of the honorable life, freedom from fear, joy in our own being, and compassion for our fellow creatures. There’s a humility and humanity in these letters that surpasses anything you may find in Seneca’s fellow Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. I took so many notes. I copied out so many passages. This is one of those books you want to loan to everyone, except that you can’t bear to part with it.

A few favorite passages:

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

It is not the man who has too little who is poor but the man who hankers after more.

In the case of some sick people it is a matter for congratulation when they come to realize for themselves that they are sick.

You must inevitably either hate or imitate the world.

All foolishness suffers the burden of dissatisfaction with itself.

Whatever is true is my property.

Natural desires are limited; those which spring from false opinions have nowhere to stop, for falsity has no point of termination.

A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

Each man has a character of his own choosing; it is chance or fate that decides his choice of job.

With afflictions of the spirit...the worse a person is, the less he feels it. You needn’t feel surprised, my dearest Lucilius. A person sleeping lightly perceives impressions in his dreams and is sometimes, even, aware during sleep that he is asleep, whereas a heavy slumber blots out even dreams and plunges the mind too deep for consciousness of self. Why does no one admit his failings? Because he’s still deep in them.

The man whom you should admire and imitate is the one who finds it a joy to live and in spite of that is not reluctant to die.

Night does not remove our worries; it brings them to the surface.

I should prefer to see you abandoning grief rather than it abandoning you. Much as you may wish, you will not be able to keep it up for very long, so give it up as early as possible.

At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is a whole.

There are times when even to live is an act of bravery.

You will die not because you are sick but because you are alive.

[A] life spent viewing all the variety, the majesty, the sublimity in things around us can never succumb to ennui: the feeling that one is tired of being, of existing, is usually the result of an idle and inactive leisure.

To want to know more than is sufficient is a form of intemperance.

It would be some relief to our condition and our frailty if all things were as slow in their perishing as they were in their coming into being: but as it is, the growth of things is a tardy process and their undoing is a rapid matter.

We’re born unequal, we die equal.

What good does it do you to go overseas, to move from city to city? If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind himself. ...more

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Nov 05, 2013 Kevin Baird rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Lots of life lessons to digest with this one. A few of my favorite highlights:

On the importance of continuous learning:

"Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day."

On the importance of having a role model / mentor of sorts to keep you on the path:

"Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever before your eyes, living as ...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Nick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I don't buy the criticism you see about Seneca not practicing what he preached. The closest I've ever been to being emperor of anything is the emperor of ice cream, so maybe the guy deserves more credit than the typical accusations of hypocrisy.

I had picked this book up again last year just sensing a need for some more sturdy philosophical grounding for resilience in my life and then decided to promote it in my queue at the reco of Tim Ferriss.

I slogged through it for a long time. Not gonna lie, I don't buy the criticism you see about Seneca not practicing what he preached. The closest I've ever been to being emperor of anything is the emperor of ice cream, so maybe the guy deserves more credit than the typical accusations of hypocrisy.

I had picked this book up again last year just sensing a need for some more sturdy philosophical grounding for resilience in my life and then decided to promote it in my queue at the reco of Tim Ferriss.

I slogged through it for a long time. Not gonna lie, the first half of the book really took it out of me. But something crazy happened along the way. My father died abruptly and all the sudden these discussions about resilience, temperance, equanimity, simplicity, moral clarity, overcoming the limits of mortality, and the stoicism in the face of loss--all of it came into focus. I found a lot of this to be spot-on and hella-comforting at this time.

Now, I'm not going to start taking cold showers. But maybe I'll try it?

Parts of this book, if you read them carefully, are a total lol. His railing against over-grooming in men and against the wearing of age-inappropriate clothing (hello 2013!). His letters CXIV and CXII about decadence are just awesome, plump with rants against literary adornment, affectation, fetishes. I see this hilarious crotchety old dude railing against the hepcats of Rome with their sunscreened boys and entourages partying all night. It's actually quite hilarious.

Some notable cross references that this book stirred for me.
1) Fellini's film masterpiece from 1960 La Dolce Vita. You get some of that same thematic stuff as in Seneca's letter about Rome's decadence.

2)Thoreau's Walden from 1854. You note a lot of philosophical commonality. Certain passages seem almost lifted from Seneca. Especially the most quoted stuff about sucking the marrow from life, about working on yourself, eschewing the pleasures of the world, living a life of principle, avoiding travel for the sake of variety alone.

3) The Declaration of Independence (1776). Most apparent here is this philosophical summum bonum of Happiness (its pursuit). Seneca sets his views apart from mere knowledge-acquisition or philosophy for the sake of itself, by explicitly saying the end is about putting into practice decisions that make for a happy life. It's a profound departure from many thinkers at the time. It's amazing to see the the deep taproots of this idea stretch all the way from 1776 to AD 50 (and probably before). It's a great rejection of sophistry. "My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life." (Letter CVIII). We may see this as obvious, but it has not always been so.

Last thing, the cash value for me in this has been in allowing in Seneca's ideas about how to cope with the death of loved ones. I'm pretty sure Seneca would be happy to know we put this stuff to use.

Take your time with this book. ...more

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May 18, 2011 Ransom Mowris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: already-read

One of the most profound books I've read. Seneca defines philosophy not as a system of logical rules for old men to argue about and rearrange, but as a means to prescribe a way of life. He sees a philosopher as a wise doctor who provides advice on the optimal way to live so as to be as happy as possible.

With this goal in mind, Seneca wrote a series of letters to his close friend advising him on the many dangers of Roman social life circa the 1st century. He also advises his friend on practices ...more

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Mar 30, 2014 Philipp rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, on-living, on-death

tl;dr: Classic philosophy, mixed with old-people-opinions

This is really good if you want to have a primer into Stoicism - the writing in these letters is straightforward, each letter handles two or three themes and is usually only a couple of pages long.

The annoying parts are Seneca's old-people-opinions, some of which are:

1. People who stay up all night are terrible
2. 'For it is silly [.] to spend one's time exercising the biceps'
3. Popular styles are terrible: 'It's object is to sway a mass ...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Chuck Rylant rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is hard to rate because the book is loaded with valuable insights. There are several quotes that will apply to your life today.

That said, it was very hard to read. It is boring beyond belief. It took me months to get through it because I could only take a few pages at a time before my mind wondered off.

I don't think I got all there is to get from it in one read. This is more of a book that needs to be studied. Perhaps leave is laying on the coffee table and read a page or two a day with a ...more

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Oct 16, 2010 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I think if I were to ascribe to any worldview, I would choose Stoicism. Seneca is one of the reasons why. An eminently reasonable man who continually urges his young charge to self-examination through the light of reason. A fun read with profound insight.

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Mar 29, 2017 Maria rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, philosophy

Ah, Philosophy... The Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva of mankind. Redeemer of humanity, slaughterer of comfortable existences; it can either save or destroy a man, but it can hardly leave him untouched.

Five stars not because I find all or most of the ideas in this book brilliant, but for how much it got me thinking, for the dialogues I established with it (having me break my no-writing-on-books rule), for its beauty and for my love for it.

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May 14, 2017 Shyam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy, primary-roman-literature, favourites, my-autobiography

I felt sad when I finished reading Seneca's final letter. I was saying goodbye to a very dear friend who I not only felt that I had come to know intimately over the past weeks, but to someone whose philosophies resonated with my own on various topics, and also at the most fundamental levels.

__________
Seneca's letters are, in my opinion, not only an essential work of Ethics, but an essential work in themselves.

I also think that they epitomise the Stoic doctrine. They are more expansive than ...more

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Jul 26, 2016 Mahmoud Awad rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Stoics were an interesting bunch. While at times it could seem that they were on something, it's important to admit that they were also onto something.

It's difficult to try to review this without mentioning Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, and I'm sure some grad student out there has tried to draw up an exhaustive comparison between the two. The two works are different in style as a result of the different nature of the two authors-one an emperor and the other the tutor for the emperor Nero, ...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Peter (Pete) Mcloughlin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classical-world, philosophy, psychology, general-history, essays, education, european-history, intellectual-history, nonfiction, 10000-bce-to-500-ce

Seneca says himself that the wisdom he imparts can be found in the common body of knowledge of the wise. The trouble is not that what Seneca says is not profound but that it is so hard to apply to ones life but that is exactly according to Seneca what is needed to live a good life. Seneca gives some good tips to apply to meet the travails of life and live it well no matter what one's circumstances are. This kind of wisdom is very similar to wisdom taught in other parts of the world and other ...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Franta rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wisdom worth returning to regularly.

"When time is so scarce what madness it is to learn superfluous things!"

The gist of Seneca is to avoid superfluous things and behavior, thus to live in accordance with nature and its laws. Which is one of the key principles of Chinese taoists as well.

Also, life is short so it is good to think about death.
Every single day.

"If you wished to be loved, love."
"True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."
"The bravest sight ...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Ann Spivack rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Okay, I'm not good at reading something like this cover to cover -- it's thought-provoking but it takes me a while to just think over each letter. I keep this book on my nightstand and read it just one letter at a time, and sometimes weeks go by before I read another. But still, there's something astonishing about reading ideas that still apply so many centuries after Seneca wrote them. For example, he says, stay on one subject; if you fly from topic to topic, it's harder for your mind to work ...more

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May 15, 2018 Jacob Hurley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: roman-literature

Did not expect much but was instead given a very restrained set of letters giving well written advice about remaining calm and rational, accepting fate, etc. He also spends a lot of time talking about the proper approach to philosophy - that it must have some ethical/spiritual use, an approach he also extends to literature in one of the later letters. This is actually a rather useful and insightful book, which I did not expect from the sort of mysticism image i had of stoicism. Well recommended

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Jul 14, 2014 Kevin Cole rated it it was ok · review of another edition

If you like Stoic thinking, Seneca is not as pretty as Marcus Aurelius or good as Epictetus. He's more middle-of-the-road. Oddly, these letters read a lot like newspaper columns or blog entries.

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Aug 01, 2009 Cooper Cooper rated it liked it · review of another edition

Selected by Tiberius, Nero became emperor of Rome as a mere teenager, and Nero’s ambitious mother selected Seneca to tutor her son. For five years, while Nero goofed off, Seneca (in alliance with a general, Burris) actually ruled Rome. Some have claimed these were the best five years in the empire’s history. Then palace intrigue caught up with Seneca; he retired voluntarily; but a few years later, after being implicated in a plot against Nero’s life, he was directed to commit suicide (this was ...more

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Oct 14, 2018 Michael Huang rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: tobuy

Stoics saw the world as one single great community and all men are brothers. A man should live in conformity with divine will which means 1, not only question convention and training the self to do without all except necessities, but developing inborn gift of reason which marks us off as different from the animal world; 2, resigning himself completely and uncomplainingly to whatever fate may send him.

The ideal or goal of stoicism is called arete in Greek, virtus in Latin, and virtue is an Stoics saw the world as one single great community and all men are brothers. A man should live in conformity with divine will which means 1, not only question convention and training the self to do without all except necessities, but developing inborn gift of reason which marks us off as different from the animal world; 2, resigning himself completely and uncomplainingly to whatever fate may send him.

The ideal or goal of stoicism is called arete in Greek, virtus in Latin, and virtue is an unsatisfactory translation. It is wisdom (or moral insight), courage, self-control, and justice (or upright dealing). This ideal seems too high and partially explains why it fails to influence the masses. They didn't discuss sufficiently the gradual self-improvement aspect. Seneca's contribution lay in the humanization of this creed. He is not without hypocrisy as he's attacked for sleeping with the emperor's mother; and bluntly admits that philosophers do not practice what they preach.

Seneca wrote a whole bunch of letters to Lucilius, thought to be used for publication of a book, so they are not necessarily random letters. But they don't read like carefully planned, mostly semi-spontaneous, with occasional good points and stories. In his letters, he quotes or rephrases from Epicurus a lot, even though he was from a different philosophical school.

Here is the list of a few quotes:

• For it its silly, my dear Lucilius, to spend one's time exercising the biceps, broadening the neck and shoulders … you'll never match the strength or the weight of a prize ox. [wow, body builders, 2000 years ago?]

• The mind has to be given some time off, but in such a way that it may be refreshed, not relaxed till it goes to pieces.

• … a striking maxim from Greece: "The life of folly is empty of gratitude, full of anxiety: it is focused wholly on the future."

• One thing I know: all the works of mortal man lie under sentence of mortality; we live among things that are destined to perish. … So the spirit must be trained to a realization and an acceptance of its lot.

• The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet, will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing. The story is told that someone complained to Socrates that traveling abroad had never done him any good and received the reply: "What else can you expect, seeing that you always take yourself along?"

• The philosopher's audience is made up of this element, which regards his lecture-hall as a place of lodging for periods of leisure. They're not concerned to rid themselves of any faults there, or acquire any rule of life by which to test their characters, but simply to enjoy to the full the pleasures the ear has to offer.

• The man who live extravagantly wants his manner of living to be on everybody's lips as long as he is alive. He thinks he is wasting his time if he is not being talked about. So every now and then he does something calculated to set people talking. (I wonder what the extravagant man does back then without instagram.)

• One of the cause of troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we're seduced by convention.

• No man's good by accident. Virtue has to be learnt. ...more

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Apr 25, 2018 Richard Newton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, thinking-about-life

(Note, I read a slightly different edition published by Dover Books, ISBN 0486811247 - which contains all the letters translated by Richard Gumtree, but not the essays or tragedies).

The letters are a series of letters from Seneca to a friend Lucillus. In modern language we might say Seneca was his mentor. He was a demanding mentor - full of tough love, criticising Lucillus from time to time in no uncertain terms. They are a fascinating insight into Roman life, as well as being full of good ...more

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Jul 14, 2015 Jayaprakash Satyamurthy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A lucid, compelling translation brings Seneca's matter of fact, dignified take on Stoicism to the forefront. Sometimes Seneca gets lost in his own words, simply restating the same proposition in varying terms, but the crispness of the translation keeps the tedium at a minimum. Apart from his philosophical meditations there are also insights into life in Nero's times, everything from agricultural methods to fads at banquets. There are clear points of divergence between my own worldview and ...more

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Nov 11, 2016 Joe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Don't think I'd recommend this edition. With the lack of important letters and headers for each letter the reader does not get the full effect of Seneca. However, reading the unabridged 124 letters is where to go. This is where you'll find how great Seneca is: his full thoughts, not cut up and diluted.

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Seneca

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca) (ca. 4 BC – 65 AD) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. While he was later forced to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors, he may ...more