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

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.”

:)