Letters from a Stoic: An essential, best-loved classic (Collins Classics)

by Seneca

Give over thinking that your prayers can bend Divine decrees from their predestined end.

15So near at hand is freedom, and is anyone still a slave?

Unhappy fellow, you are a slave to men, you are a slave to your business, you are a slave to life. For life, if courage to die be lacking, is slavery.

You know the taste of wine and cordials. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand measures[fn11] pass through your bladder; you are nothing but a wine-strainer.

You wish to live; well, do you know how lo live? You are afraid to die. But come now: is this life of yours anything but death? Gaius Caesar was passing along the Via Latina, when a man stepped out from the ranks of the prisoners, his grey beard hanging down even to his breast, and begged to be put to death. “What!” said Caesar, “are you alive now?”

It is with life as it is with a play, – it matters not how long the action is spun out, but how good the acting is. It makes no difference at what point you stop. Stop whenever you choose; only see to it that the closing period is well turned.

What benefit is there in reviewing past sufferings, and in being unhappy, just because once you were unhappy?

Perchance some day the memory of this sorrow Will even bring delight.

any life must seem short to those who measure its length by pleasures which are empty and for that reason unbounded.

as Posidonius says:[fn14] “A single day among the learned lasts longer than the longest life of the ignorant.”

drunkenness[fn11] is nothing but a condition of insanity purposely assumed.

22Think of the calamities caused by drunkenness in a nation! This evil has betrayed to their enemies the most spirited and warlike races; this evil has made breaches in walls defended by the stubborn warfare of many years; this evil has forced under alien sway peoples who were utterly unyielding and defiant of the yoke; this evil has conquered by the wine-cup those who in the field were invincible.

24What glory is there in carrying much liquor? When you have won the prize, and the other banqueters, sprawling asleep or vomiting, have declined your challenge to still other toasts; when you are the last survivor of the revels; when you have vanquished every one by your magnificent show of prowess and there is no man who has proved himself of so great capacity as you, you are vanquished by the cask.

Homer was a philosopher; yet surely he became a wise man before he had any knowledge of poetry. So let us learn the particular things that made Homer wise.

what good does it do us to guide a horse and control his speed with the curb, and then find that our own passions, utterly uncurbed, bolt with us? Or to beat many opponents in wrestling or boxing, and then to find that we ourselves are beaten by anger?

29Bravery is a scorner of things which inspire fear; it looks down upon, challenges, and crushes the powers of terror and all that would drive our freedom under the yoke. But do “liberal studies”[fn26] strengthen this virtue? Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart; it is forced into betrayal by no constraint, and it is bribed by no rewards. Loyalty cries: “Burn me, slay me, kill me! I shall not betray my trust; and the more urgently torture shall seek to find my secret, the deeper in my heart will I bury it!” Can the “liberal arts” produce such a spirit within us? Temperance controls our desires; some it hates and routs, others it regulates and restores to a healthy measure, nor does it ever approach our desires for their own sake. Temperance knows that the best measure of the appetites is not what you want to take, but what you ought to take. 30Kindliness forbids you to be over-bearing towards your associates, and it forbids you to be grasping. In words and in deeds and in feelings it shows itself gentle and courteous to all men. It counts no evil as another’s solely. And the reason why it loves its own good is chiefly because it will some day be the good of another. Do “liberal studies” teach a man such character as this? No; no more than they teach simplicity, moderation and self-restraint, thrift and economy, and that kindliness which spares a neighbour’s life as if it were one’s own and knows that it is not for man to make wasteful use of his fellow-man.

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. One set of philosophers offers no light by which I may direct my gaze toward the truth; the other digs out my very eyes and leaves me blind.

A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery.

Strangeness adds to the weight of calamities, and every mortal feels the greater pain as a result of that which also brings surprise.

increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.

all the works of mortal man have been doomed to mortality, and in the midst of things which have been destined to die, we live!

“Teach me something easy!” he cries; but his teacher answers: “These things are the same for all, as hard for one as for another.” 18Imagine that nature is saying to us: “Those things of which you complain are the same for all. I cannot give anything easier to any man, but whoever wishes will make things easier for himself.

It is only by common opinion that there is anything formidable in them. Your fearing death is therefore like your fear of gossip.

Our friend Demetrius[fn16] is wont to put it cleverly when he says: “For me the talk of ignorant men is like the rumblings which issue from the belly. For,” he adds, “what difference does it make to me whether such rumblings come from above or from below?”

no one of those who malign death has made trial of it.

death is helpful to many, that it sets many free from tortures, want, ailments, sufferings, and weariness. We are in the power of nothing when once we have death in our own power!

He who does not value his wife, or his friend, highly enough to linger longer in life – he who obstinately persists in dying is a voluptuary.

what is sweeter than to be so valued by one’s wife that one becomes more valuable to oneself for this reason?

Socrates is reported to have replied, when a certain person complained of having received no benefit from his travels: “It serves you right! You travelled in your own company!”

What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own.

9Suppose that you hold wealth to be a good: poverty will then distress you, and, – which is most pitiable, – it will be an imaginary poverty. For you may be rich, and nevertheless, because your neighbour is richer, you suppose yourself to be poor exactly by the same amount in which you fall short of your neighbour.

11You may judge it the most grievous of ills to lose any of those you love; while all the same this would be no less foolish than weeping because the trees which charm your eye and adorn your home lose their foliage. Regard everything that pleases you as if it were a flourishing plant; make the most of it while it is in leaf,

travel as far as you like, you can never establish yourself beyond the reach of desire, beyond the reach of bad temper, or beyond the reach of fear;

he who is feared, fears also; no one has been able to arouse terror and live in peace of mind.

Those who lack self-control lead disturbed and tumultuous lives; their crimes are balanced by their fears, and they are never at ease.

the true hearer is ravished and stirred by the beauty of the subject matter, not by the jingle of empty words.

9The poor lack much; the greedy man lacks all.

A greedy man does good to none; he does Most evil to himself.

He needs but little who desires but little.

it is easier for the will to cut off certain things utterly than to use them with restraint.

the luxurious person wishes to be an object of gossip his whole life; if people are silent about him, he thinks that he is wasting his time.

nothing is heavy if one accepts it with a light heart,

There are things which, if done by the few, we should refuse to imitate; yet when the majority have begun to do them, we follow along – just as if anything were more honourable because it is more frequent!

24Only consider yourself happy when all your joys are born of reason, and when – having marked all the objects which men clutch at, or pray for, or watch over – you find nothing which you will desire; mind, I do not say prefer.

“You will come to your own when you shall understand that those whom the world calls fortunate are really the most unfortunate of all.”