Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

by Seneca

my dear Lucilius – set yourself free for your own sake;

the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

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.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

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

Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it, or believes that living through many consulships is a great blessing.

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.

Beasts avoid the dangers which they see, and when they have escaped them are free from care; but we men torment ourselves over that which is to come as well as over that which is past.

No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.

Therefore I summon you, not merely that you may derive benefit, but that you may confer benefit; for we can assist each other greatly.

"What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself."

When persons are in mourning, or fearful about something, we are accustomed to watch them that we may prevent them from making a wrong use of their loneliness. No thoughtless person ought to be left alone; in such cases he only plans folly, and heaps up future dangers for himself or for others; he brings into play his base desires; the mind displays what fear or shame used to repress; it whets his boldness, stirs his passions, and goads his anger. And finally, the only benefit that solitude confers, – the habit of trusting no man, and of fearing no witnesses, – is lost to the fool; for he betrays himself.

For we must indeed have someone according to whom we may regulate our characters; you can never straighten that which is crooked unless you use a ruler.

What has the future in store for me, if stones of my own age are already crumbling?

"it is a nuisance to be looking death in the face!"