Letters from a Stoic: Volume I

by Seneca

Make yourself believe the truth of my words, – that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.

Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

For love of bustle is not industry, – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.

You must either imitate or loathe the world.

What Chance has made yours is not really yours.

There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Virtue is held too cheap by the man who counts his body too dear.

"If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich."

"The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles."

Hence men leave such advantages as these with reluctance; they love the reward of their hardships, but curse the hardships themselves. Men complain about their ambitions as they complain about their mistresses; in other words, if you penetrate their real feelings, you will find, not hatred, but bickering. Search the minds of those who cry down what they have desired, who talk about escaping from things which they are unable to do without; you will comprehend that they are lingering of their own free will in a situation which they declare they find it hard and wretched to endure. It is so, my dear Lucilius; there are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.

Take anyone off his guard, young, old, or middle-aged; you will find that all are equally afraid of death, and equally ignorant of life.

Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

Put aside the opinion of the world; it is always wavering and always takes both sides.

regret remains even after the pleasures are over.

Be deaf to those who love you most of all; they pray for bad things with good intentions.

Would you know what makes men greedy for the future? It is because no one has yet found himself.

A single tree is not remarkable if the whole forest rises to the same height.

Only the poor man counts his flock.

Fortune has no jurisdiction over character.

Utility measures our needs; but by what standard can you check the superfluous? It is for this reason that men sink themselves in pleasures, and they cannot do without them when once they have become accustomed to them, and for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached such a pass that what was once superfluous to them has become indispensable. And so they are the slaves of their pleasures instead of enjoying them; they even love their own ills, – and that is the worst ill of all! Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits.

Our stupidity may be clearly proved by the fact that we hold that "buying" refers only to the objects for which we pay cash, and we regard as free gifts the things for which we spend our very selves. These we should refuse to buy, if we were compelled to give in payment for them our houses or some attractive and profitable estate; but we are eager to attain them at the cost of anxiety, of danger, and of lost honor, personal freedom, and time; so true it is that each man regards nothing as cheaper than himself.

If there is anything that can make life happy, it is good on its own merits; for it cannot degenerate into evil. Where, then, lies the mistake, since all men crave the happy life? It is that they regard the means for producing happiness as happiness itself, and, while seeking happiness, they are really fleeing from it. For although the sum and substance of the happy life is unalloyed freedom from care, and though the secret of such freedom is unshaken confidence, yet men gather together that which causes worry, and, while travelling life's treacherous road, not only have burdens to bear, but even draw burdens to themselves; hence they recede farther and farther from the achievement of that which they seek, and the more effort they expend, the more they hinder themselves and are set back. This is what happens when you hurry through a maze; the faster you go, the worse you are entangled.

How closely flattery resembles friendship!

Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties.

No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.

I seem to have lost you but a moment ago. For what is not "but a moment ago" when one begins to use the memory?

There is no man to whom a good mind comes before an evil one.

Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.

How mad is he who leaves the lecture-room in a happy frame of mind simply because of applause from the ignorant! Why do you take pleasure in being praised by men whom you yourself cannot praise?

If you mark them carefully, all acts are always significant, and you can gauge character by even the most trifling signs.

"What?" I say to myself; "does death so often test me? Let it do so; I myself have for a long time tested death." "When?" you ask. Before I was born. Death is non-existence, and I know already what that means. What was before me will happen again after me. If there is any suffering in this state, there must have been such suffering also in the past, before we entered the light of day. As a matter of fact, however, we felt no discomfort then. And I ask you, would you not say that one was the greatest of fools who believed that a lamp was worse off when it was extinguished than before it was lighted? We mortals also are lighted and extinguished; the period of suffering comes in between, but on either side there is a deep peace. For, unless I am very much mistaken, my dear Lucilius, we go astray in thinking that death only follows, when in reality it has both preceded us and will in turn follow us. Whatever condition existed before our birth, is death. For what does it matter whether you do not begin at all, or whether you leave off, inasmuch as the result of both these states is non-existence?

There is a pleasure in being in one's own company as long as possible, when a man has made himself worth enjoying.

He who dies just because he is in pain is a weakling, a coward; but he who lives merely to brave out this pain, is a fool.

What hinders us most of all is that we are too readily satisfied with ourselves; if we meet with someone who calls us good men, or sensible men, or holy men, we see ourselves in his description, not content with praise in moderation, we accept everything that shameless flattery heaps upon us, as if it were our due.

It is in the power of any man to despise all things, but of no man to possess all things. The shortest cut to riches is to despise riches.