Hardship and Happiness (Ad Marciam De consolatione, Ad Helviam matrem De consolatione, De Consolatione ad Polybium, De Brevitate Vitæ, De Constantia Sapientis, De Tranquillitate Animi, De Otio, De Vita Beata, De Providentia)

by Seneca

exculpation

Stoics do not think that it is at all easy to get rid of the cultural errors that are the basis of the rejected passions: thus a Stoic life is a constant therapeutic process in which mental exercises are devised to wean the mind from its unwise attachments.

Stoicism

recalling him everywhere both in private and in public, gladly speaking about him and hearing about him: she lived with his memory, something no one can preserve and revisit if it has been allowed to become a source of sadness.

My heart

So choose which of these examples you think the more commendable. If you want to follow the first one, you will absent yourself from the company of the living; you will avoid both other people’s children and your own, and even the very child you miss; mothers will regard you as a bad omen when you encounter them; you will spurn pleasures that are honorable and permissible, as though inappropriate to your misfortune; you will hate the light in which you linger, and will bitterly detest your age, because it does not instantly strike you down and bring your life to an end; and—something most shameful and quite out of keeping with your character, which is very highly regarded—you will demonstrate that you do not want to live and yet are incapable of dying.

Unresolved grief

I think there is nothing more glorious than when those who are at the pinnacle of society grant pardon for many actions, but seek pardon for none; so in the present circumstances too you need to stick to your usual practice, and do nothing that you might wish you had not done at all or had done differently.

We are held to a higher standard

if fate can be overcome by weeping, let us resort to weeping; let every day be spent in grieving, let sleepless misery consume the night; let our hands pummel our bruised breasts, let our very faces come under attack, and let sorrow, to advance its cause, employ every kind of cruelty. But if no breast-beating can bring back the dead, if fate, unchanging and fixed for eternity, is not altered by any distress, and death keeps whatever it has taken, let there be an end to a grief that is just being wasted.

Damn

“So what is the origin of the great stubbornness with which we lament our loved ones, if it does not occur at nature’s command?” It is because we do not anticipate suffering until it happens; rather, as though we ourselves were exempt and had set out on a more tranquil journey than other people, we fail to learn from the misfortunes of others that they are common to all.

True

You23 must realize that you stand exposed to every kind of blow, and that the weapons that have struck others have been whizzing past you. Just as if, with poor equipment, you were climbing up to attack some city wall or a high point occupied by a large enemy force, you should expect to be wounded, and should reckon that your body is the target of the rocks that are raining down, and of the arrows and the spears. Whenever someone falls beside you or behind you, cry out: “You will not deceive me, fortune, or find me complacent or heedless when you destroy me. I know what you are up to: you struck somebody else, but you were aiming at me.” (4) Who has ever examined his life in the recognition that he is going to die? Which of you has ever ventured to think about exile, poverty, grief? Who would not, if he were advised to think about them, spit out the advice like words of ill omen, and bid the curse fall on his enemies, or on the unwelcome adviser himself? (5) “I didn’t think it would happen.” How can you think that anything is not going to happen when you know that it can happen, and you see that it has happened to many people? What a fine line of poetry this is, deserving better than to have come from the stage: “What can happen to one person can happen to anyone”!24

Yes

And it’s not just the special circumstances of time and place that put them on a par with the needy: when they’re in the grip of boredom with their riches, they pick certain days on which to dine on the ground and, laying aside their gold and silver plate, to use earthenware dishes. What madmen! They always dread this state of poverty that they sometimes crave! What darkness of mind,

Lol

Nevertheless, thanks to your quick and voracious intellect, you took in a great deal for the amount of time you had; the foundations for every branch of philosophical study have been laid. Return to those studies now, and they will keep you safe. (5) They will bring you comfort, they will give you pleasure. If they truly enter your mind, never again will grief gain entry, and never will anxiety, and never the unnecessary distress caused by suffering that is pointless. Your heart will be open to none of these; for it has long been closed to all other moral failings. These studies are your surest form of protection, and the only resource that can rescue you from fortune’s power.

Kindet words never written

Do you not see what sort of life nature promised us, when it decided that the first thing human beings do at their birth should be to cry?12 This is our starting point when we come into the world, and the entire sequence of succeeding years follows the pattern. We live our lives on these terms, and so we should exercise moderation when doing what we have to do so often; and as we glance behind us at all the forms of sorrow that are at our backs, threatening us, we ought, if not to put a complete stop to our tears, at least to hold them in reserve. There is nothing we should use more sparingly than what we need so frequently.

Hmm

If the dead no longer have any sensation, my brother has now escaped all the disadvantages of life, he has been restored to the state he was in before he was born, and free from all evil, he fears nothing, desires nothing, suffers nothing. What madness is this, never to stop grieving for someone who is never going to grieve? (3) But if the dead do have some sensation, now my brother’s mind is exulting as though released from a lengthy prison sentence and at last its own master and judge, enjoying the contemplation of the universe, and looking down on the whole human world from a higher place; best of all, it is looking from closer quarters at the divine, which for so long it had sought in vain to understand.17 So why am I wasting away with longing for someone who is either happy or nonexistent? To weep for a happy man is envy, to weep for a nonexistent man is madness.”

:)

You’ll find no one willing to distribute his money; but to how many people each of us shares out his life! Men are thrifty in guarding their private property, but as soon as it comes to wasting time, they are most extravagant with the one commodity for which it’s respectable to be greedy.

Ha

I am always astonished when I see people requesting the time of others and receiving a most accommodating response from those they approach. Both sides focus on the object of the request, and neither side on time itself; it is requested as if it were nothing, granted as if it were nothing. People trifle with the most precious commodity of all; and it escapes their notice because it’s an immaterial thing that doesn’t appear to the eyes, and for that reason it’s valued very cheaply—or rather, it has practically no value at all. (2) People set very great store by annuities and gratuities, and for these they hire out their services or their efforts or their attentions. But no one values time: all use it more than lavishly, as if it cost nothing. But if mortal danger threatens them, you’ll see the same people clasping their doctors’ knees; if they fear a capital charge, you’ll see them ready to spend all they have to stay alive. So great is the conflict in their feelings. (3) But if each of us could see the number of years before us as precisely as the years that have passed, how alarmed would be those who saw only a few years left, and how carefully would they use them! And yet it’s easy to manage an amount, however small, which is clearly defined; we have to be more careful in conserving an amount that may give out at any time.

Facts

After all, who is unaware that none of the things that are thought bad or good seem to the wise person as they seem to everyone else? He does not respect people’s judgments about what is shameful or pitiful. He does not go on the popular path, but as the planets pursue a course contrary to the movement of the heavens, so does the wise person advance against popular opinion.

Hm

One should especially avoid grim fellows who deplore everything, men whom any excuse pleases to make complaints. Even if his loyalty and goodwill are certain, a troubled companion who groans at everything is the enemy of tranquility.

Lol

So we must mitigate everything and bear it with an easy mind; it is more humane to make fun of life than to bewail it.

LMAO

Another serious source of anxieties is if you present yourself anxiously and do not show your nature openly to others, as is the life of many, falsified and adjusted for display; for constant watching over ourselves torments us, fearing to be caught other than is usual. We are never free from care if we believe we are being evaluated as often as we are seen; for many things happen to bare men against their will, and even if such cautious concern over oneself succeeds, life is not pleasant or carefree for men living continually under a mask. (2) But what great pleasure is experienced by genuine and ungroomed honesty, thrusting no screen before its habits! Yet even this life suffers the risk of scorn, if everything is laid open to all, since there are those who disdain whatever they have come close to. But virtue runs no risk of being cheapened when it is set before the eyes, and it is better to be scorned for one’s honesty than tormented by constant pretense. Only let us put a limit on it; it makes a great difference whether you live honestly or carelessly.

Well said

And we should not keep our mind always straining at the same level, but call it away to jesting: Socrates did not blush to play with young boys; Cato56 eased his mind with wine when it was exhausted by public concerns; and Scipio bestirred that body of a triumphant general and soldier in the dance, not weakening it in soft motions as is the custom now for men mincing beyond womanly affectation even in their manner of walking, but as those men of old used to step out in manly fashion during play and public holidays, risking no loss, even if they were observed by their enemies. (5) We must give our minds relaxation: they will arise from rest better and more vigorous. Just as we should not impose commands on fertile lands—for uninterrupted fertility will quickly drain them—so constant toil will break down the impulses of our minds, which will recover strength after being released and relaxed for a short while: constant laboring leads to blunted and languid minds. (6) Our desire for this would not be so great if sport and

Wel said

in precisely that way is it more pernicious. Human affairs are not in such a good condition that the majority favors what is better: a crowd is proof of what is worst. (2)

Lol

you see those men who praise eloquence, who pursue wealth, who fawn over favor, who exalt power? Everyone either is their enemy or, which amounts to the same thing, could be their enemy: as many as are in awe of them resent them. Why should I not rather seek out something that is good in practice—something I can feel, rather than display? Those

Hmm

They do not, then, indulge in luxury at the urging of Epicurus, but rather, being devotees of the vices, they conceal their luxury in philosophy’s lap and make a beeline for where they hear pleasure is praised. Nor do they appreciate how sober and temperate is that pleasure of Epicurus (this, by Hercules, is my opinion!), but they fling themselves toward his very name, seeking for their lusts a sponsor and a veil.30 (5) And so they lose the one good thing they had in their bad actions: shame for their wrongdoing. Now, you see, they praise the things at which they used to blush, and they boast about their vice. Thus not even a resurgence of regret is allowed,31 when a moral label is placed on disgraceful idleness. This is why your praise of virtue is dangerous: moral precepts are hidden within, while what is outwardly shown is that which corrupts.

Accurate

Why is it strange if god puts noble spirits through hard tests? A lesson in virtue is never soft. Fortune flogs us and lacerates us: let us suffer. It is not cruelty but a trial, and the more often we come to it the more courageous we will be. The most robust part of the body is that which constant use has put into action. We ought to offer ourselves up to fortune so that by it we can be hardened against it. It will gradually make us equal to it: the frequency of our endangerment will give us scorn for dangers. (13) The reason why sailors have bodies hard enough to endure the sea, why farmers have callused hands, why soldiers’ arms are strong enough to wield weapons, and why runners have agile limbs is this: what is most robust in each is what he has exercised. The mind comes to scorn suffering by suffering.

Whoa

am coerced into nothing. I suffer nothing unwillingly. I do not serve god, but rather I agree with him—all the more so because I know that all things come to pass by a law that is fixed and is decreed for eternity. (7) The fates lead us, and the amount of time that remains for each person was stipulated at our first hour when we were born.42 Cause hangs on cause. Things both private and public are drawn along in a long order of events. Each thing must be suffered bravely because all things do not simply occur, as we think, but rather they arrive. It was decided long ago what you would have that you could rejoice about, what you would have that you could cry about. And however much the lives of individuals seem to be distinguished by great variety, the total comes to one thing: the things we receive will perish, as will we. (8) Why, then, do we get angry? Why do we complain? We were made ready for this. Let nature use its bodies as it wants. We should be joyful and courageous toward all things, and we should consider how nothing perishes that is ours. What belongs to a good man? To offer himself up to fate. It is a magnificent consolation to be carried away with the universe. Whatever it is that has commanded us to live in this way, to die in this way, binds the gods too with the same necessity. Human and divine are carried along equally on a course that cannot be revoked. Yes,

Damn

“But why does god allow anything bad to happen to good men?” Actually he does not allow this. He has taken all bad things away from them—crimes and misdeeds and wicked thoughts and greedy designs and blind lust and avarice that hovers over what belongs to another. The men themselves he watches over and protects. Surely no one can demand from god that he take care of good men’s baggage too? They themselves discharge god of this responsibility: they scorn external things.

Hm