Moral Letters to Lucilius quotes

… will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that 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.

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

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

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed.

Whatever years lie behind us are in death’s hands.

Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

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. What fools these mortals be!

Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.

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. What fools these mortals be!

They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity,—time!

And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.

You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practising. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful.

What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early.

For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.

Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. Farewell.

What is the state of things, then? It is this:

I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him.

I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.

Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit.

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.

Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady.

You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.

Everywhere means nowhere.

When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere.

When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner.

for I am wont to cross over even into the enemy’s camp,—not as a deserter, but as a scout. He says: “Contented poverty is an honourable estate.” Indeed, if it be contented, it is not poverty at all.

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

What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour’s property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains …

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.

Farewell.

before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment. Those persons indeed put last first and confound their duties, who, violating the rules of Theophrastus, judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him.

Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.

Speak as boldly with him as with yourself.

… should live in such a way that you trust your own self with nothing which you could not entrust even to your enemy, yet, since certain matters occur which convention keeps secret, you should share with a friend at least all your worries and reflections.

Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal.

Some, for example, fearing to be deceived, have taught men to deceive; by their suspicions they have given their friend the right to do wrong. Why need I keep back any words in the presence of my friend?

“Some men shrink into dark corners, to such a degree that they see darkly by day.” No, men should combine these tendencies, and he who reposes should act and he who acts should take repose.

Discuss the problem with Nature; she will tell you that she has created both day and night.

Farewell.

Others, again, fear to confide in their closest intimates; and if it were possible, they would not trust even themselves, burying their secrets deep in their hearts. But we should do neither.

It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one.

Yet the former fault is, I should say, the more ingenuous, the latter the more safe. In like manner you should rebuke these two kinds of men,—both those who always lack repose, and those who are always in repose.

Yet the former fault is, I should say, the more ingenuous, the latter the more safe. In like manner you should rebuke these two kinds of men,—both those who always lack repose, and those who are always in repose.

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

And true repose does not consist in condemning all motion as merely vexation; that kind of repose is slackness and inertia. Therefore, you should note the following saying, taken from my reading in Pomponius:

For it is not boyhood that still stays with us, but something worse,—boyishness. And this condition is all the more serious because we possess the authority of old age, together with the follies of boyhood, yea, even the follies of infancy.

Boys fear trifles, children fear shadows, we fear both.

All you need to do is to advance; you will thus understand that some things are less to be dreaded, precisely because they inspire us with great fear. No evil is great which is the last evil of all. Death arrives;

a third, to be saved from arrest after running away, drives a sword into his vitals. Do you not suppose that virtue will be as efficacious as excessive fear?

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.

Rehearse this thought every day, that you may be able to depart from life contentedly; for many men clutch and cling to life, even as those who are carried down a rushing stream clutch and cling to briars and sharp rocks.

they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die. For this reason, make life as a whole agreeable to yourself by banishing all worry about it.

No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed.

Therefore, encourage and toughen your spirit against the mishaps that afflict even the most powerful. For example, the fate of Pompey was settled by a boy and a eunuch, that of Crassus by a cruel and insolent Parthian.

and he himself offered his own throat to Chaerea. No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.

Do not trust her seeming calm; in a moment the sea is moved to its depths.

The very day the ships have made a brave show in the games, they are engulfed. Reflect that a highwayman or an enemy may cut your throat; and, though he is not your master, every slave wields the power of life and death over you.

nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat,—the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

That which is enough is ready to our hands.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich. Farewell.

The mere name of philosophy, however quietly pursued, is an object of sufficient scorn; and what would happen if we should begin to separate ourselves from the customs of our fellow-men?

Inwardly, we ought to be different in all respects, but our exterior should conform to society.

Do not wear too fine, nor yet too frowzy, a toga. One needs no silver plate, encrusted and embossed in solid gold; but we should not believe the lack of silver and gold to be proof of the simple life.

Just as it is a sign of luxury to seek out dainties, so it is madness to avoid that which is customary and can be purchased at no great price.

Philosophy calls for plain living, but not for penance; and we may perfectly well be plain and neat at the same time.

This is the mean of which I approve; our life should observe a happy medium between the ways of a sage and the ways of the world at large; all men should admire it, but they should understand it also.

Shall there be no distinction between ourselves and the world?” Yes, a very great one; let men find that we are unlike the common herd, if they look closely. If they visit us at home, they should admire us, rather than our household appointments.

He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.

It is the sign of an unstable mind not to be able to endure riches.

If they visit us at home, they should admire us, rather than our household appointments. He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.

It is the sign of an unstable mind not to be able to endure riches.

But I wish to share with you to-day’s profit also. I find in the writings of our Hecato that the limiting of desires helps also to cure fears: “Cease to hope,” he says, “and you will cease to fear.”

but we men torment ourselves over that which is to come as well as over that which is past. Many of our blessings bring bane to us; for memory recalls the tortures of fear, while foresight anticipates them.

The present alone can make no man wretched.

Farewell.

“Cease to hope,” he says, “and you will cease to fear.” “But how,” you will reply, “can things so different go side by side?” In this way, my dear Lucilius: though they do seem at variance, yet they are really united.

Just as the same chain fastens the prisoner and the soldier who guards him, so hope and fear, dissimilar as they are, keep step together; fear follows hope.

I am not surprised that they proceed in this way; each alike belongs to a mind that is in suspense, a mind that is fretted by looking forward to the future.

But the chief cause of both these ills is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts a long way ahead.

And so foresight, the noblest blessing of the human race, becomes perverted.

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. Many of our blessings bring bane to us;

And indeed this very fact is proof that my spirit is altered into something better,—that it can see its own faults, of which it was previously ignorant.

In certain cases sick men are congratulated because they themselves have perceived that they are sick.

I therefore wish to impart to you this sudden change in myself;

Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself.

And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it.

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

Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it.

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

I shall therefore send to you the actual books; and in order that you may not waste time in searching here and there for profitable topics, I shall mark certain passages, so that you can turn at once to those which I approve and admire.

But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you.

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can.

Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you. Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can.

Associate with those who will make a better man of you.

Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach. There is no reason why pride in advertising your abilities should lure you into publicity, so that you should desire to recite or harangue before the general public.

you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you. Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you.

Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.

The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach. There is no reason why pride in advertising your abilities should lure you into publicity, so that you should desire to recite or harangue before the general public.

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.

The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

There is no reason why pride in advertising your abilities should lure you into publicity, so that you should desire to recite or harangue before the general public.

Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?

Your good qualities should face inwards.

Farewell.

I cry out to them: “Avoid whatever pleases the throng: avoid the gifts of Chance! Halt before every good which Chance brings to you, in a spirit of doubt and fear; for it is the dumb animals and fish that are deceived by tempting hopes.

Do you call these things the ‘gifts’ of Fortune? They are snares.

And any man among you who wishes to live a life of safety will avoid, to the utmost of his power, these limed twigs of her favour, by which we mortals, most wretched in this respect also, are deceived;

understand that a man is sheltered just as well by a thatch as by a roof of gold. Despise everything that useless toil creates as an ornament and an object of beauty.

And reflect that nothing except the soul is worthy of wonder; for to the soul, if it be great, naught is great.

”

I recall that you yourself expressed this idea much more happily and concisely:

What Chance has made yours is not really yours.

And a third, spoken by you still more happily, shall not be omitted:

And a third, spoken by you still more happily, shall not be omitted:

The good that could be given, can be removed.

I shall not charge this up to the expense account, because I have given it to you from your own stock. Farewell.

Hence, also, we notice those many shameful cases of persons who, through fear, desert or betray. The beginning and the end cannot but harmonize.

He who begins to be your friend because it pays will also cease because it pays.

A man will be attracted by some reward offered in exchange for his friendship, if he be attracted by aught in friendship other than friendship itself.

“How, then,” you ask, “does he seek it?” Precisely as he seeks an object of great beauty, not attracted to it by desire for gain, nor yet frightened by the instability of Fortune.

One who seeks friendship for favourable occasions, strips it of all its nobility.

“The wise man is self-sufficient.” This phrase, my dear Lucilius, is incorrectly explained by many; for they withdraw the wise man from the world, and force him to dwell within his own skin.

also, not how one feels on one particular day, but how one feels at all times. There is no reason, however, why you should fear that this great privilege will fall into unworthy hands; only the wise man is pleased with his own.

Folly is ever troubled with weariness of itself.

Farewell.

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.

but if anyone listens, they are silent at once. That which they are unwilling for men to know, they communicate to God. Do you not think, then, that some such wholesome advice as this could be given you: “

Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening

”? Farewell.

The steadiest speaker, when before the public, often breaks into a perspiration, as if he had wearied or over-heated himself; some tremble in the knees when they rise to speak; I know of some whose teeth chatter, whose tongues falter, whose lips quiver.

Training and experience can never shake off this habit; nature exerts her own power and through such a weakness makes her presence known even to the strongest.

I know that the blush, too, is a habit of this sort, spreading suddenly over the faces of the most dignified men. It is, indeed more prevalent in youth, because of the warmer blood and the sensitive countenance;

We can get rid of most sins, if we have a witness who stands near us when we are likely to go wrong. The soul should have someone whom it can respect,—one by whose authority it may make even its inner shrine more hallowed.

Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts!

And happy also is he who can so revere a man as to calm and regulate himself by calling him to mind! One who can so revere another, will soon be himself worthy of reverence. Choose therefore a Cato;

My bailiff maintained that the flaws were not due to his own carelessness; “he was doing everything possible, but the house was old.” And this was the house which grew under my own hands!

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

I was angry, and I embraced the first opportunity to vent my spleen in the bailiff’s presence. “It is clear,” I cried, “that these plane-trees are neglected; they have no leaves. Their branches are so gnarled and shrivelled; the boles are so rough and unkempt!

Death, however, should be looked in the face by young and old alike. We are not summoned according to our rating on the censor’s list. Moreover, no one is so old that it would be improper for him to hope for another day of existence.

And one day, mind you, is a stage on life’s journey.

Our span of life is divided into parts; it consists of large circles enclosing smaller. One circle embraces and bounds the rest; it reaches from birth to the last day of existence. The next circle limits the period of our young manhood.

And I myself believe that the period which stands, so to speak, on the edge of the roof, possesses pleasures of its own. Or else the very fact of our not wanting pleasures has taken the place of the pleasures themselves.

How comforting it is to have tired out one’s appetites, and to have done with them!

“But,” you say, “it is a nuisance to be looking death in the face!” Death, however, should be looked in the face by young and old alike. We are not summoned according to our rating on the censor’s list.

I owe it to my country-place that my old age became apparent whithersoever I turned.

Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it.

Fruits are most welcome when almost over; youth is most charming at its close; the last drink delights the toper,—the glass which souses him and puts the finishing touch on his drunkenness. Each pleasure reserves to the end the greatest delights which it contains.

And if God is pleased to add another day, we should welcome it with glad hearts.

That man is happiest, and is secure in his own possession of himself, who can await the morrow without apprehension.

When a man has said: “I have lived!”, every morning he arises he receives a bonus.

For manliness gains much strength by being challenged; nevertheless, if you approve, allow me to offer some additional safeguards by which you may fortify yourself.

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

I am not speaking with you in the Stoic strain but in my milder style. For it is our Stoic fashion to speak of all those things, which provoke cries and groans, as unimportant and beneath notice;

they certainly have not yet come. Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all.

We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.

The first of these three faults may be postponed for the present, because the subject is under discussion and the case is still in court, so to speak. That which I should call trifling, you will maintain to be most serious;

And somehow or other it is the idle report that disturbs us most.

For truth has its own definite boundaries, but that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork and the irresponsible license of a frightened mind.

That is why no fear is so ruinous and so uncontrollable as panic fear. For other fears are groundless, but this fear is witless.

Let us, then, look carefully into the matter. It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact.

How often has the unexpected happened! How often has the expected never come to pass!

And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives; so look forward meanwhile to better things. What shall you gain by doing this? Time.

A fire has opened the way to flight. Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe. Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim’s throat. Men have survived their own executioners.

Even bad fortune is fickle.

Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not. So look forward to better things.

But now, to close my letter, I have only to stamp the usual seal upon it, in other words, to commit thereto some noble message to be delivered to you: “

The fool, with all his other faults, has this also,—he is always getting ready to live.

” Reflect, my esteemed Lucilius, what this saying means, and you will see how revolting is the fickleness of men who lay down every day new foundations of life, and begin to build up fresh hopes even at the brink of the grave.

I confess that we are entrusted with its guardianship. I do not maintain that the body is not to be indulged at all; but I maintain that we must not be slaves to it.

He will have many masters who makes his body his master, who is over-fearful in its behalf, who judges everything according to the body.

We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it. Our too great love for it makes us restless with fears, burdens us with cares, and exposes us to insults.

We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it. Our too great love for it makes us restless with fears, burdens us with cares, and exposes us to insults.

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

We should cherish the body with the greatest care; but we should also be prepared, when reason, self-respect, and duty demand the sacrifice, to deliver it even to the flames.

It is hard to observe a mean; we must be chary of letting the fear of jealousy lead us into becoming objects of scorn, lest, when we choose not to stamp others down, we let them think that they can stamp us down.

The power to inspire fear has caused many men to be in fear.

Let us withdraw ourselves in every way; for it is as harmful to be scorned as to be admired.

Innocent persons sometimes perish; who would deny that? But the guilty perish more frequently. A soldier’s skill is not at fault if he receives the death-blow through his armour. And finally, the wise man regards the reason for all his actions, but not the results.

The beginning is in our own power; fortune decides the issue, but I do not allow her to pass sentence upon myself.

You may say: “But she can inflict a measure of suffering and of trouble.” The highwayman does not pass sentence when he slays.

The phrase belongs to Epicurus, or Metrodorus, or some one of that particular thinking-shop. But what difference does it make who spoke the words? They were uttered for the world.

He who craves riches feels fear on their account.

No man, however, enjoys a blessing that brings anxiety; he is always trying to add a little more. While he puzzles over increasing his wealth, he forgets how to use it.

Select for practice any one of these, and you will find it plain and easy. But whatever you do, come back soon from body to mind.

The mind must be exercised both day and night, for it is nourished by moderate labour; and this form of exercise need not be hampered by cold or hot weather, or even by old age.

Cultivate that good which improves with the years. Of course I do not command you to be always bending over your books and your writing materials;

The mind must be exercised both day and night, for it is nourished by moderate labour; and this form of exercise need not be hampered by cold or hot weather, or even by old age.

Cultivate that good which improves with the years.

Of course I do not command you to be always bending over your books and your writing materials; the mind must have a change,—but a change of such a kind that it is not unnerved, but merely unbent.

nor do we reflect how pleasant it is to demand nothing, how noble it is to be contented and not to be dependent upon Fortune. Therefore continually remind yourself, Lucilius, how many ambitions you have attained.

When you see many ahead of you, think how many are behind!

If you would thank the gods, and be grateful for your past life, you should contemplate how many men you have outstripped. But what have you to do with the others? You have outstripped yourself.

Fix a limit which you will not even desire to pass, should you have the power.

At last, then, away with all these treacherous goods! They look better to those who hope for them than to those who have attained them.

If there were anything substantial in them, they would sooner or later satisfy you; as it is, they merely rouse the drinkers' thirst. Away with fripperies which only serve for show!

there is no reason why you should put confidence in yourself too quickly and readily. Examine yourself; scrutinize and observe yourself in divers ways; but mark, before all else, whether it is in philosophy or merely in life itself that you have made progress.

Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show.

It is a matter, not of words, but of facts. It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us.

Examine yourself; scrutinize and observe yourself in divers ways; but mark, before all else, whether it is in philosophy or merely in life itself that you have made progress. Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show.

It is a matter, not of words, but of facts.

It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us. It moulds and constructs the soul;

Sift the letter, and you will find it. You need not wonder at any genius of mine; for as yet I am lavish only with other men’s property.—But why did I say “other men”?

Whatever is well said by anyone is mine.

—This also is a saying of Epicurus: “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.” Nature’s wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless.

that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches. Add statues, paintings, and and whatever any art has devised for the satisfaction of luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater.

Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point.

The false has no limits. When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless.

Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point. The false has no limits.

When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless.

Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point.

No throng of slaves surrounds the poor man,—slaves for whose mouths the master must covet the fertile crops of regions beyond the sea. It is easy to fill a few stomachs, when they are well trained and crave nothing else but to be filled.

Hunger costs but little; squeamishness costs much.

Poverty is contented with fulfilling pressing needs.

Doubtless, your object, what you wish to attain by such postponement of your studies, is that poverty may not have to be feared by you. But what if it is something to be desired?

Riches have shut off many a man from the attainment of wisdom; poverty is unburdened and free from care.

When the trumpet sounds, the poor man knows that he is not being attacked; when there is a cry of “Fire,” he only seeks a way of escape, and does not ask what he can save;

but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way,—thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd.

For one may keep holiday without extravagance.

I am so firmly determined, however, to test the constancy of your mind that, drawing from the teachings of great men, I shall give you also a lesson:

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?”

It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence.

In days of peace the soldier performs manœuvres, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil.

If you retreat to privacy, everything will be on a smaller scale, but you will be satisfied abundantly; in your present condition, however, there is no satisfaction in the plenty which is heaped upon you on all sides.

Would you rather be poor and sated, or rich and hungry?

Prosperity is not only greedy, but it also lies exposed to the greed of others. And as long as nothing satisfies you, you yourself cannot satisfy others.

in your present condition, however, there is no satisfaction in the plenty which is heaped upon you on all sides. Would you rather be poor and sated, or rich and hungry?

Prosperity is not only greedy, but it also lies exposed to the greed of others.

And as long as nothing satisfies you, you yourself cannot satisfy others.

… is, that he believes men to be his friends when he himself is not a friend to them, and that he deems his favours to be effective in winning friends, although, in the case of certain men, the more they owe, the more they hate.

A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy.

“What,” you say, “do not kindnesses establish friendships?” They do, if one has had the privilege of choosing those who are to receive them, and if they are placed judiciously, instead of being scattered broadcast.

“But,” you reply, “who can maintain this standard?” Very few, to be sure; but there are some. It is indeed a hard undertaking, and I do not say that the philosopher can always keep the same pace.

But he can always travel the same path.

Observe yourself, then, and see whether your dress and your house are inconsistent, whether you treat yourself lavishly and your family meanly, whether you eat frugal dinners and yet build luxurious houses.

“But what,” you say, “will become of my crowded household without a household income?” If you stop supporting that crowd, it will support itself; or perhaps you will learn by the bounty of poverty what you cannot learn by your own bounty.

Poverty will keep for you your true and tried friends; you will be rid of the men who were not seeking you for yourself, but for something which you have.

Is it not true, however, that you should love poverty, if only for this single reason,—that it will show you those by whom you are loved? O when will that time come, when no one shall tell lies to compliment you!

Accordingly, let your thoughts, your efforts, your desires, help to make you content with your own self and with the goods that spring from yourself; and commit all your other prayers to God’s keeping!

What happiness could come closer home to you?

Bring yourself down to humble conditions, from which you cannot be ejected; and in order that you may do so with greater alacrity, the contribution contained in this letter shall refer to that subject; I shall bestow it upon you forthwith.

Rather let the soul be roused from its sleep and be prodded, and let it be reminded that nature has prescribed very little for us.

No man is born rich.

Every man, when he first sees light, is commanded to be content with milk and rags. Such is our beginning, and yet kingdoms are all too small for us! Farewell.

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.

If, however, you intend to be rid of this slavery; if freedom is genuinely pleasing in your eyes;

But if you keep turning round and looking about, in order to see how much you may carry away with you, and how much money you may keep to equip yourself for the life of leisure, you will never find a way out.

No man can swim ashore and take his baggage with him.

Rise to a higher life, with the favour of the gods;

The reason, however, is, that we are stripped of all our goods, we have jettisoned our cargo of life and are in distress; for no part of it has been packed in the hold; it has all been heaved overboard and has drifted away.

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.

Farewell.

The man who is goaded ahead by hope of anything, though it be within reach, though it be easy of access, and though his ambitions have never played him false, is troubled and unsure of himself.

Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy.

Do you think that I am now robbing you of many pleasures when I try to do away with the gifts of chance, when I counsel the avoidance of hope, the sweetest thing that gladdens our hearts? Quite the contrary;

and it is born there, if only it be inside of you. Other objects of cheer do not fill a man’s bosom; they merely smooth his brow and are inconstant,—unless perhaps you believe that he who laughs has joy.

The very soul must be happy and confident, lifted above every circumstance.

Real joy, believe me, is a stern matter. Can one, do you think, despise death with a care-free countenance, or with a “blithe and gay” expression, as our young dandies are accustomed to say?

Other objects of cheer do not fill a man’s bosom; they merely smooth his brow and are inconstant,—unless perhaps you believe that he who laughs has joy. The very soul must be happy and confident, lifted above every circumstance.

Real joy, believe me, is a stern matter.

Can one, do you think, despise death with a care-free countenance, or with a “blithe and gay” expression, as our young dandies are accustomed to say?

others are torn along by a more violent current; some, which are nearest the bank, are left there as the current slackens; and others are carried out to sea by the onrush of the stream.

Therefore, we should decide what we wish, and abide by the decision.

Now is the time for me to pay my debt. I can give you a saying of your friend Epicurus and thus clear this letter of its obligation: “It is bothersome always to be beginning life.” Or another, which will perhaps express the meaning better:

practically everyone is of such a stamp. Some men, indeed, only begin to live when it is time for them to leave off living. And if this seems surprising to you, I shall add that which will surprise you still more:

Some men have left off living before they have begun.

Farewell.

You write me that you are anxious about the result of a lawsuit, with which an angry opponent is threatening you; and you expect me to advise you to picture to yourself a happier issue, and to rest in the allurements of hope.

Why, indeed, is it necessary to summon trouble,—which must be endured soon enough when it has once arrived,—or to anticipate trouble and ruin the present through fear of the future?

It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time. But I shall conduct you to peace of mind by another route:

Why, indeed, is it necessary to summon trouble,—which must be endured soon enough when it has once arrived,—or to anticipate trouble and ruin the present through fear of the future?

It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time.

But I shall conduct you to peace of mind by another route: if you would put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen will certainly happen in any event;

What you see happening to boys happens also to ourselves, who are only slightly bigger boys: when those whom they love, with whom they daily associate, with whom they play, appear with masks on, the boys are frightened out of their wits.

We should strip the mask, not only from men, but from things, and restore to each object its own aspect.

“Why dost thou hold up before my eyes swords, fires, and a throng of executioners raging about thee? Take away all that vain show, behind which thou lurkest and scarest fools! Ah!

For we need to be warned and strengthened in both directions,—not to love or to hate life overmuch; even when reason advises us to make an end of it, the impulse is not to be adopted without reflection or at headlong speed.

The brave and wise man should not beat a hasty retreat from life; he should make a becoming exit.

And above all, he should avoid the weakness which has taken possession of so many,—the lust for death. For just as there is an unreflecting tendency of the mind towards other things, so, my dear Lucilius, there is an unreflecting tendency towards death;

But do you yourself, as indeed you are doing, show me that you are stout-hearted; lighten your baggage for the march.

None of our possessions is essential.

Let us return to the law of nature; for then riches are laid up for us. The things which we actually need are free for all, or else cheap; nature craves only bread and water. No one is poor according to this standard;

Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience? Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind?

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Vergil remarks,

The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels.” What pleasure is there in seeing new lands? Or in surveying cities and spots of interest? All your bustle is useless. Do you ask why such flight does not help you?

It is because you flee along with yourself.

You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you. Reflect that your present behaviour is like that of the prophetess whom Vergil describes:

The wise man will endure all that, but will not choose it; he will prefer to be at peace rather than at war.

It helps little to have cast out your own faults if you must quarrel with those of others.

Says one: “There were thirty tyrants surrounding Socrates, and yet they could not break his spirit”; but what does it matter how many masters a man has? “Slavery” has no plural;

That trouble once removed, all change of scene will become pleasant; though you may be driven to the uttermost ends of the earth, in whatever corner of a savage land you may find yourself, that place, however forbidding, will be to you a hospitable abode.

The person you are matters more than the place to which you go; for that reason we should not make the mind a bondsman to any one place.

Live in this belief: “I am not born for any one corner of the universe; this whole world is my country.”

The person you are matters more than the place to which you go; for that reason we should not make the mind a bondsman to any one place.

Live in this belief: “I am not born for any one corner of the universe; this whole world is my country.”

If you saw this fact clearly, you would not be surprised at getting no benefit from the fresh scenes to which you roam each time through weariness of the old scenes.

And much harm is done even by one who holds you back, especially since life is so short; and we make it still shorter by our unsteadiness, by making ever fresh beginnings at life, now one and immediately another.

We break up life into little bits, and fritter it away.

Hasten ahead, then, dearest Lucilius, and reflect how greatly you would quicken your speed if an enemy were at your back, or if you suspected the cavalry were approaching and pressing hard upon your steps as you fled. It is true;

Let him prove daily to these detractors how wisely he has looked out for his own interests. Those whom men envy will continue to march past him; some will be pushed out of the ranks, and others will fall.

Prosperity is a turbulent thing; it torments itself.

It stirs the brain in more ways than one, goading men on to various aims,—some to power, and others to high living. Some it puffs up; others it slackens and wholly enervates.

But the greatest benefit is to be derived from conversation, because it creeps by degrees into the soul. Lectures prepared beforehand and spouted in the presence of a throng have in them more noise but less intimacy.

Philosophy is good advice; and no one can give advice at the top of his lungs.

Of course we must sometimes also make use of these harangues, if I may so call them, when a doubting member needs to be spurred on;

You will desire eagerly to be one of them yourself. For this is the most excellent quality that the noble soul has within itself, that it can be roused to honourable things.

No man of exalted gifts is pleased with that which is low and mean; the vision of great achievement summons him and uplifts him.

Just as the flame springs straight into the air and cannot be cabined or kept down any more than it can repose in quiet, so our soul is always in motion, and the more ardent it is, the greater its motion and activity.

… 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. Farewell.

But how can that speech govern others which cannot itself be governed? May I not also remark that all speech which is employed for the purpose of healing our minds, ought to sink into us?

Remedies do not avail unless they remain in the system.

Besides, this sort of speech contains a great deal of sheer emptiness; it has more sound than power. My terrors should be quieted, my irritations soothed, my illusions shaken off, my indulgences checked, my greed rebuked.

We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard.

God is near you, he is with you, he is within you.

This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it.

For what is more foolish than to praise in a man the qualities which come from without? And what is more insane than to marvel at characteristics which may at the next instant be passed on to someone else?

A golden bit does not make a better horse.

The lion with gilded mane, in process of being trained and forced by weariness to endure the decoration, is sent into the arena in quite a different way from the wild lion whose spirit is unbroken;

the latter, indeed, bold in his attack, as nature wished him to be, impressive because of his wild appearance,—and it is his glory that none can look upon him without fear,—is favoured in preference to the other lion, that languid and gilded brute.

No man ought to glory except in that which is his own.

We praise a vine if it makes the shoots teem with increase, if by its weight it bends to the ground the very poles which hold its fruit; would any man prefer to this vine one from which golden grapes and golden leaves hang down?

In the case of many men, their vices, being powerless, escape notice; although, as soon as the persons in question have become satisfied with their own strength, the vices will be no less daring than those which prosperity has already disclosed.

These men simply lack the means whereby they may unfold their wickedness.

Similarly, one can handle even a poisonous snake while it is stiff with cold; the poison is not lacking; it is merely numbed into inaction.

Do you remember how, when you declared that a certain person was under your influence, I pronounced him fickle and a bird of passage, and said that you held him not by the foot but merely by a wing? Was I mistaken?

You grasped him only by a feather; he left it in your hands and escaped.

You know what an exhibition he afterwards made of himself before you, how many of the things he attempted were to recoil upon his own head. He did not see that in endangering others he was tottering to his own downfall.

Therefore, with regard to the objects which we pursue, and for which we strive with great effort, we should note this truth; either there is nothing desirable in them, or the undesirable is preponderant.

Some objects are superfluous; others are not worth the price we pay for them.

But we do not see this clearly, and we regard things as free gifts when they really cost us very dear.

Some objects are superfluous; others are not worth the price we pay for them. But we do not see this clearly, and we regard things as free gifts when they really cost us very dear.

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;

Let us therefore act, in all our plans and conduct, just as we are accustomed to act whenever we approach a huckster who has certain wares for sale; let us see how much we must pay for that which we crave.

Very often the things that cost nothing cost us the most heavily; I can show you many objects the quest and acquisition of which have wrested freedom from our hands.

We should belong to ourselves, if only these things did not belong to us.

let us see how much we must pay for that which we crave. Very often the things that cost nothing cost us the most heavily; I can show you many objects the quest and acquisition of which have wrested freedom from our hands.

We should belong to ourselves, if only these things did not belong to us.

I would therefore have you reflect thus, not only when it is a question of gain, but also when it is a question of loss. “This object is bound to perish.” Yes, it was a mere extra;

you will perceive that it is not the loss that troubles us with reference to these things, but a notion of loss. No one feels that they have been lost, but his mind tells him that it has been so.

He that owns himself has lost nothing.

But how few men are blessed with ownership of self! Farewell.

Now there is no reason why you should measure yourself according to this part of the world; have regard only to the place where you are dwelling. Any point which rises above adjacent points is great, at the spot where it rises.

For greatness is not absolute; comparison increases it or lessens it.

A ship which looms large in the river seems tiny when on the ocean. A rudder which is large for one vessel, is small for another.

have regard only to the place where you are dwelling. Any point which rises above adjacent points is great, at the spot where it rises. For greatness is not absolute; comparison increases it or lessens it.

A ship which looms large in the river seems tiny when on the ocean.

A rudder which is large for one vessel, is small for another.

we live in such a fashion that being suddenly disclosed to view is equivalent to being caught in the act. What profits it, however, to hide ourselves away, and to avoid the eyes and ears of men?

A good conscience welcomes the crowd, but a bad conscience, even in solitude, is disturbed and troubled.

If your deeds are honourable, let everybody know them; if base, what matters it that no one knows them, as long as you yourself know them? How wretched you are if you despise such a witness! Farewell.

otherwise, if you hark back to antiquity, every one traces back to a date before which there is nothing. From the earliest beginnings of the universe to the present time, we have been led forward out of origins that were alternately illustrious and ignoble.

A hall full of smoke-begrimed busts does not make the nobleman.

No past life has been lived to lend us glory, and that which has existed before us is not ours; the soul alone renders us noble, and it may rise superior to Fortune out of any earlier condition, no matter what that condition has been.

From the earliest beginnings of the universe to the present time, we have been led forward out of origins that were alternately illustrious and ignoble. A hall full of smoke-begrimed busts does not make the nobleman.

No past life has been lived to lend us glory, and that which has existed before us is not ours; the soul alone renders us noble, and it may rise superior to Fortune out of any earlier condition, no matter what that condition has been.

Suppose, then, that you were not a Roman knight, but a freedman, you might nevertheless by your own efforts come to be the only free man amid a throng of gentlemen. “How?” you ask.

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.

Farewell.

You complain that in your part of the world there is a scant supply of books. But it is quality, rather than quantity, that matters; a limited list of reading benefits; a varied assortment serves only for delight.

He who would arrive at the appointed end must follow a single road and not wander through many ways.

What you suggest is not travelling; it is mere tramping.

But whatever the quality of my works may be, read them as if I were still seeking, and were not aware of, the truth, and were seeking it obstinately, too.

For I have sold myself to no man; I bear the name of no master.

I give much credit to the judgment of great men; but I claim something also for my own. For these men, too, have left to us, not positive discoveries, but problems whose solution is still to be sought.

They might perhaps have discovered the essentials, had they not sought the superfluous also. They lost much time in quibbling about words and in sophistical argumentation; all that sort of thing exercises the wit to no purpose.

We tie knots and bind up words in double meanings, and then try to untie them.

Have we leisure enough for this? Do we already know how to live, or die? We should rather proceed with our whole souls towards the point where it is our duty to take heed lest things, as well as words, deceive us.

it is between things that you must discriminate. We embrace evil instead of good; we pray for something opposite to that which we have prayed for in the past. Our prayers clash with our prayers, our plans with our plans.

How closely flattery resembles friendship!

It not only apes friendship, but outdoes it, passing it in the race; with wide-open and indulgent ears it is welcomed and sinks to the depths of the heart, and it is pleasing precisely wherein it does harm.

Show me how I may be able to see through this resemblance! An enemy comes to me full of compliments, in the guise of a friend.

Vices creep into our hearts under the name of virtues, rashness lurks beneath the appellation of bravery, moderation is called sluggishness, and the coward is regarded as prudent; there is great danger if we go astray in these matters.

So stamp them with special labels.

Consider individuals, survey men in general; there is none whose life does not look forward to the morrow. “What harm is there in this,” you ask? Infinite harm; for such persons do not live, but are preparing to live.

They postpone everything.

Even if we paid strict attention, life would soon get ahead of us; but as we are now, life finds us lingering and passes us by as if it belonged to another, and though it ends on the final day, it perishes every day.

I am glad to learn, through those who come from you, that you live on friendly terms with your slaves. This befits a sensible and well-educated man like yourself.

“They are slaves,” people declare. Nay, rather they are men.

“Slaves!” No, comrades. “Slaves!” No, they are unpretentious friends. “Slaves!” No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike.

they spoke at the feast, but kept silence during torture. Finally, the saying, in allusion to this same high-handed treatment, becomes current: “As many enemies as you have slaves.”

They are not enemies when we acquire them; we make them enemies.

I shall pass over other cruel and inhuman conduct towards them; for we maltreat them, not as if they were men, but as if they were beasts of burden.

the slave, too, in his turn has cut his name from the list and in his turn has adjudged him unfit to enter his house. The master sold Callistus, but how much has Callistus made his master pay for!

Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies.

It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave.

I do not wish to involve myself in too large a question, and to discuss the treatment of slaves, towards whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting. But this is the kernel of my advice:

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

And as often as you reflect how much power you have over a slave, remember that your master has just as much power over you. “But I have no master,” you say. You are still young; perhaps you will have one.

You are mistaken if you think that I would bar from my table certain slaves whose duties are more humble, as, for example, yonder muleteer or yonder herdsman; I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties.

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

Invite some to your table because they deserve the honour, and others that they may come to deserve it.

You need not, my dear Lucilius, hunt for friends only in the forum or in the Senate-house; if you are careful and attentive, you will find them at home also.

Good material often stands idle for want of an artist; make the experiment, and you will find it so.

As he is a fool who, when purchasing a horse, does not consider the animal’s points, but merely his saddle and bridle;

I will name you an ex-consul who is slave to an old hag, a millionaire who is slave to a serving-maid; I will show you youths of the noblest birth in serfdom to pantomime players!

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

You should therefore not be deterred by these finicky persons from showing yourself to your slaves as an affable person and not proudly superior to them; they ought to respect you rather than fear you.

They say: “This is what he plainly means: slaves are to pay respect as if they were clients or early-morning callers!” Anyone who holds this opinion forgets that what is enough for a god cannot be too little for a master.

Respect means love, and love and fear cannot be mingled.

So I hold that you are entirely right in not wishing to be feared by your slaves, and in lashing them merely with the tongue; only dumb animals need the thong.

Respect means love, and love and fear cannot be mingled. So I hold that you are entirely right in not wishing to be feared by your slaves, and in lashing them merely with the tongue; only dumb animals need the thong.

That which annoys us does not necessarily injure us; but we are driven into wild rage by our luxurious lives, so that whatever does not answer our whims arouses our anger.

We don the temper of kings. For they, too, forgetful alike of their own strength and of other men’s weakness, grow white-hot with rage, as if they had received an injury, when they are entirely protected from danger of such injury by their exalted station.

I do not wish to delay you longer; for you need no exhortation.

This, among other things, is a mark of good character: it forms its own judgments and abides by them; but badness is fickle and frequently changing, not for the better, but for something different.

Farewell.

Am I speaking again in the guise of an Epicurean? But the fact is, the same thing is advantageous to me which is advantageous to you; for I am not your friend unless whatever is at issue concerning you is my concern also.

Friendship produces between us a partnership in all our interests.

There is no such thing as good or bad fortune for the individual; we live in common. And no one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility;

Unless, perhaps, the following syllogism is shrewder still: “‘Mouse’ is a syllable. Now a syllable does not eat cheese. Therefore a mouse does not eat cheese.”

What childish nonsense!

Do we knit our brows over this sort of problem? Do we let our beards grow long for this reason? Is this the matter which we teach with sour and pale faces?

So-and-so is afraid of bad luck; another desires to get away from his own good fortune. Some are ill-treated by men, others by the gods. Why, then, do you frame for me such games as these?

It is no occasion for jest; you are retained as counsel for unhappy mankind.

You have promised to help those in peril by sea, those in captivity, the sick and the needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you straying? What are you doing?

you are retained as counsel for unhappy mankind. You have promised to help those in peril by sea, those in captivity, the sick and the needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you straying? What are you doing?

This friend, in whose company you are jesting, is in fear. Help him, and take the noose from about his neck.

Men are stretching out imploring hands to you on all sides; lives ruined and in danger of ruin are begging for some assistance; men’s hopes, men’s resources, depend upon you.

Therefore, my dear Lucilius, withdraw yourself as far as possible from these exceptions and objections of so-called philosophers.

Frankness, and simplicity beseem true goodness.

Even if there were many years left to you, you would have had to spend them frugally in order to have enough for the necessary things; but as it is, when your time is so scant, what madness it is to learn superfluous things! Farewell.

she has taken one portion thereof and made it infancy, another childhood, another youth, another the gradual slope, so to speak, from youth to old age, and old age itself is still another.

How many steps for how short a climb!

It was but a moment ago that I saw you off on your journey; and yet this “moment ago” makes up a goodly share of our existence, which is so brief, we should reflect, that it will soon come to an end altogether.

… that I sat, as a lad, in the school of the philosopher Sotion, but a moment ago that I began to plead in the courts, but a moment ago that I lost the desire to plead, but a moment ago that I lost the ability.

Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly who are looking backwards.

For when we are intent on the present, we do not notice it, so gentle is the passage of time’s headlong flight. Do you ask the reason for this? All past time is in the same place;

Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly who are looking backwards. For when we are intent on the present, we do not notice it, so gentle is the passage of time’s headlong flight. Do you ask the reason for this?

All past time is in the same place; it all presents the same aspect to us, it lies together.

Everything slips into the same abyss. Besides, an event which in its entirety is of brief compass cannot contain long intervals. The time which we spend in living is but a point, nay, even less than a point.

If you will only refuse to lead me along by-paths, I shall more easily reach the goal at which I am aiming. For, as the tragic poet says:

The language of truth is simple.

We should not, therefore, make that language intricate; since there is nothing less fitting for a soul of great endeavour than such crafty cleverness. Farewell.

For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself?

We are indeed apt to ascribe certain faults to the place or to the time; but those faults will follow us, no matter how we change our place.

You know Harpasté, my wife’s female clown; she has remained in my house, a burden incurred from a legacy. I particularly disapprove of these freaks; whenever I wish to enjoy the quips of a clown, I am not compelled to hunt far;

I can laugh at myself. Now this clown suddenly became blind. The story sounds incredible, but I assure you that it is true: she does not know that she is blind.

She keeps asking her attendant to change her quarters; she says that her apartments are too dark.

You can see clearly that that which makes us smile in the case of Harpasté happens to all the rest of us; nobody understands that he is himself greedy, or that he is covetous.

I am not extravagant, but mere living in the city demands a great outlay. It is not my fault that I have a choleric disposition, or that I have not settled down to any definite scheme of life; it is due to my youth.”

Why do we deceive ourselves?

The evil that afflicts us is not external, it is within us, situated in our very vitals; for that reason we attain soundness with all the more difficulty, because we do not know that we are diseased.

It is not my fault that I have a choleric disposition, or that I have not settled down to any definite scheme of life; it is due to my youth.” Why do we deceive ourselves?

The evil that afflicts us is not external, it is within us, situated in our very vitals; for that reason we attain soundness with all the more difficulty, because we do not know that we are diseased.

Suppose that we have begun the cure; when shall we throw off all these diseases, with all their virulence?

At present, we do not even consult the physician, whose work would be easier if he were called in when the complaint was in its early stages. The tender and the inexperienced minds would follow his advice if he pointed out the right way.

No man finds it difficult to return to nature, except the man who has deserted nature.

We blush to receive instruction in sound sense; but, by Heaven, if we think it base to seek a teacher of this art, we should also abandon any hope that so great a good could be instilled into us by mere chance.

The mind must, therefore, be forced to make a beginning; from then on, the medicine is not bitter; for just as soon as it is curing us it begins to give pleasure.

One enjoys other cures only after health is restored, but a draught of philosophy is at the same moment wholesome and pleasant.

Farewell.

There is no man to whom a good mind comes before an evil one. It is the evil mind that gets first hold on all of us.

Learning virtue means unlearning vice.

We should therefore proceed to the task of freeing ourselves from faults with all the more courage because, when once committed to us, the good is an everlasting possession; virtue is not unlearned.

We should toughen our minds, and remove them far from the allurements of pleasure. A single winter relaxed Hannibal’s fibre; his pampering in Campania took the vigour out of that hero who had triumphed over Alpine snows.

He conquered with his weapons, but was conquered by his vices.

We too have a war to wage, a type of warfare in which there is allowed no rest or furlough. To be conquered, in the first place, are pleasures, which, as you see, have carried off even the sternest characters.

LII. ON CHOOSING OUR TEACHERS

What is this force, Lucilius, that drags us in one direction when we are aiming in another, urging us on to the exact place from which we long to withdraw?

What is it that wrestles with our spirit, and does not allow us to desire anything once for all? We veer from plan to plan. None of our wishes is free, none is unqualified, none is lasting.

We veer from plan to plan. None of our wishes is free, none is unqualified, none is lasting. “But it is the fool,” you say, “who is inconsistent; nothing suits him for long.” But how or when can we tear ourselves away from this folly?

No man by himself has sufficient strength to rise above it; he needs a helping hand, and some one to extricate him.

Epicurus remarks that certain men have worked their way to the truth without any one’s assistance, carving out their own passage. And he gives special praise to these, for their impulse has come from within, and they have forged to the front by themselves.

“Whom,” you say, “shall I call upon? Shall it be this man or that?” There is another choice also open to you; you may go to the ancients; for they have the time to help you.

We can get assistance not only from the living, but from those of the past.

Let us choose, however, from among the living, not men who pour forth their words with the greatest glibness, turning out commonplaces and holding.

You may be sure that this refractory nature, which demands much toil, has been implanted in us.

There are obstacles in our path; so let us fight, and call to our assistance some helpers.

“Whom,” you say, “shall I call upon? Shall it be this man or that?” There is another choice also open to you; you may go to the ancients; for they have the time to help you.

… say, but men who teach us by their lives, men who tell us what we ought to do and then prove it by practice, who show us what we should avoid, and then are never caught doing that which they have ordered us to avoid.

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

Of course I would not prevent you from listening also to those philosophers who are wont to hold public meetings and discussions, provided they appear before the people for the express purpose of improving themselves and others, and do not practise their profession for the …

… would not prevent you from listening also to those philosophers who are wont to hold public meetings and discussions, provided they appear before the people for the express purpose of improving themselves and others, and do not practise their profession for the sake of self-seeking.

For what is baser than philosophy courting applause?

Does the sick man praise the surgeon while he is operating? In silence and with reverent awe submit to the cure. Even though you cry applause, I shall listen to your cries as if you were groaning when your sores were touched.

Fabianus used to give popular talks, but his audience listened with self-control. Occasionally a loud shout of praise would burst forth, but it was prompted by the greatness of his subject, and not by the sound of oratory that slipped forth pleasantly and softly.

There should be a difference between the applause of the theatre and the applause of the school; and there is a certain decency even in bestowing praise.

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

What do you think my feelings were, scrambling over the rocks, searching out the path, or making one for myself?

I understood that sailors have good reason to fear the land.

It is hard to believe what I endured when I could not endure myself; you may be sure that the reason why Ulysses was shipwrecked on every possible occasion was not so much because the sea-god was angry with him from his birth;

For he whose sleep is light pursues visions during slumber, and sometimes, though asleep, is conscious that he is asleep; but sound slumber annihilates our very dreams and sinks the spirit down so deep that it has no perception of self.

Why will no man confess his faults? Because he is still in their grasp; only he who is awake can recount his dream, and similarly a confession of sin is a proof of sound mind.

Let us, therefore, rouse ourselves, that we may be able to correct our mistakes. Philosophy, however, is the only power that can stir us, the only power that can shake off our deep slumber. Devote yourself wholly to philosophy. You are worthy of her;

Then the ailment, uncertain at first, must be given a name; and when it begins to swell the ankles also, and has made both our feet “right” feet, we are bound to confess that we have the gout.

The opposite holds true of diseases of the soul; the worse one is, the less one perceives it.

You need not be surprised, my beloved Lucilius. For he whose sleep is light pursues visions during slumber, and sometimes, though asleep, is conscious that he is asleep;

I do not know why I should call it by its Greek name; for it is well enough described as “shortness of breath.” Its attack is of very brief duration, like that of a squall at sea; it usually ends within an hour.

Who indeed could breathe his last for long?

I have passed through all the ills and dangers of the flesh; but nothing seems to me more troublesome than this. And naturally so; for anything else may be called illness; but this is a sort of continued “last gasp.”

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.

Even to be carried for any length of time is hard work, perhaps all the more so because it is an unnatural exercise; for Nature gave us legs with which to do our own walking, and eyes with which to do our own seeing.

Our luxuries have condemned us to weakness; we have ceased to be able to do that which we have long declined to do.

Nevertheless, I found it necessary to give my body a shaking up, in order that the bile which had gathered in my throat, if that was my trouble, might be shaken out, or, if the very breath within me had become, for some reason, too …

he is living for his belly, his sleep, and his lust,—and that is the most shameful thing in the world.

He who lives for no one does not necessarily live for himself.

Nevertheless, there is so much in steadfastness and adherence to one’s purpose that even sluggishness, if stubbornly maintained, assumes an air of authority with us.

… such cases, in the first place, the nights spent apart, then the different engagements which each of two friends has, then the private studies of each and their excursions into the country, and you will see that foreign travel does not rob us of much.

A friend should be retained in the spirit; such a friend can never be absent.

He can see every day whomsoever he desires to see.

all outdoors may be bedlam, provided that there is no disturbance within, provided that fear is not wrangling with desire in my breast, provided that meanness and lavishness are not at odds, one harassing the other.

For of what benefit is a quiet neighbourhood, if our emotions are in an uproar?

’Twas night, and all the world was lulled to rest.

He complains that he has heard sounds, when he has not heard them at all. The reason, you ask? His soul is in an uproar; it must be soothed, and its rebellious murmuring checked.

You need not suppose that the soul is at peace when the body is still. Sometimes quiet means disquiet.

We must therefore rouse ourselves to action and busy ourselves with interests that are good, as often as we are in the grasp of an uncontrollable sluggishness.

This is not true; for no real rest can be found when reason has not done the lulling.

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them; it merely changes the form of our worries.

For even when we seek slumber, our sleepless moments are as harassing as the daytime. Real tranquillity is the state reached by an unperverted mind when it is relaxed.

Indeed, the more stealthily it comes, the greater is its force. For all unconcealed vices are less serious; a disease also is farther on the road to being cured when it breaks forth from concealment and manifests its power.

So with greed, ambition, and the other evils of the mind,—you may be sure that they do most harm when they are hidden behind a pretence of soundness.

Men think that we are in retirement, and yet we are not. For if we have sincerely retired, and have sounded the signal for retreat, and have scorned outward attractions, then, as I remarked above, no outward thing will distract us;

Great generals, when they see that their men are mutinous, check them by some sort of labour or keep them busy with small forays.

The much occupied man has no time for wantonness, and it is an obvious commonplace that the evils of leisure can be shaken off by hard work.

Although people may often have thought that I sought seclusion because I was disgusted with politics and regretted my hapless and thankless position, yet, in the retreat to which apprehension and weariness have driven me, my ambition sometimes develops afresh.

nor the same on the morrow as on the day preceding. Our bodies are hurried along like flowing waters; every visible object accompanies time in its flight; of the things which we see, nothing is fixed.

Even I myself, as I comment on this change, am changed myself.

This is just what Heraclitus says: “We go down twice into the same river, and yet into a different river.” For the stream still keeps the same name, but the water has already flowed past.

Frugal living can bring one to old age; and to my mind old age is not to be refused any more than it is to be craved.

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

The question, therefore, on which we have to record our judgment is, whether one should shrink from extreme old age and should hasten the end artificially, instead of waiting for it to come.

Many writers are tempted by the charm of some alluring phrase to some topic other than that which they had set themselves to discuss. But this has not been so in your case; all your words are compact, and suited to the subject,

You say all that you wish, and you mean still more than you say.

This is a proof of the importance of your subject matter, showing that your mind, as well as your words, contains nothing superfluous or bombastic.

We human beings are fettered and weakened by many vices; we have wallowed in them for a long time, and it is hard for us to be cleansed.

We are not merely defiled; we are dyed by them.

But, to refrain from passing from one figure to another, I will raise this question, which I often consider in my own heart: why is it that folly holds us with such an insistent grasp?

Reflect, therefore, on this, that the effect of wisdom is a joy that is unbroken and continuous.

The mind of the wise man is like the ultra-lunar firmament; eternal calm pervades that region.

You have, then, a reason for wishing to be wise, if the wise man is never deprived of joy. This joy springs only from the knowledge that you possess the virtues. None but the brave, the just, the self-restrained, can rejoice. And when you query:

but it would surely cease were it borrowed from without. Just because it is not in the power of another to bestow, neither is it subject to another’s whims.

That which Fortune has not given, she cannot take away.

Farewell.

Therefore those who, as Sallust puts it, “hearken to their bellies,” should be numbered among the animals, and not among men; and certain men, indeed, should be numbered, not even among the animals, but among the dead.

He really lives who is made use of by many; he really lives who makes use of himself.

Those men, however, who creep into a hole and grow torpid are no better off in their homes than if they were in their tombs.

Not at all. How small is the amount which will satisfy nature? A very little will send her away contented.

It is not the natural hunger of our bellies that costs us dear, but our solicitous cravings.

Therefore those who, as Sallust puts it, “hearken to their bellies,” should be numbered among the animals, and not among men; and certain men, indeed, should be numbered, not even among the animals, but among the dead.

in my old age I have ceased to desire what I desired when a boy. To this single end my days and my nights are passed; this is my task, this the object of my thoughts,—to put an end to my chronic ills.

I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life.

I do not indeed snatch it up as if it were my last; I do regard it, however, as if it might even be my last.

That which is bound to be a necessity if you rebel, is not a necessity if you desire it. This is what I mean: he who takes his orders gladly, escapes the bitterest part of slavery,—doing what one does not want to do.

The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will.

Let us therefore so set our minds in order that we may desire whatever is demanded of us by circumstances, and above all that we may reflect upon our end without sadness. We must make ready for death before we make ready for life.

We must make ready for death before we make ready for life. Life is well enough furnished, but we are too greedy with regard to its furnishings; something always seems to us lacking, and will always seem lacking.

To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds.

I have lived, my dear friend Lucilius, long enough. I have had my fill; I await death. Farewell.

Why should I not hold him in high esteem? I have found that he lacks nothing. 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.

Our friend Demetrius, however, lives not merely as if he has learned to despise all things, but as if he has handed them over for others to possess. Farewell.

they make a pretence of their engagements, and multiply them, when their engagements are merely with themselves. As for me, Lucilius, my time is free; it is indeed free, and wherever I am, I am master of myself.

For I do not surrender myself to my affairs, but loan myself to them, and I do not hunt out excuses for wasting my time.

And wherever I am situated, I carry on my own meditations and ponder in my mind some wholesome thought.

For my part, I do not agree with him. To me, the thought of my dead friends is sweet and appealing. For I have had them as if I should one day lose them;

I have lost them as if I have them still.

Therefore, Lucilius, act as befits your own serenity of mind, and cease to put a wrong interpretation on the gifts of Fortune. Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.

Therefore, Lucilius, act as befits your own serenity of mind, and cease to put a wrong interpretation on the gifts of Fortune. Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.

Let us greedily enjoy our friends, because we do not know how long this privilege will be ours.

Let us think how often we shall leave them when we go upon distant journeys, and how often we shall fail to see them when we tarry together in the same place;

For all that, what woman can you show me, of all the pathetic females that could scarcely be dragged away from the funeral-pile or torn from the corpse, whose tears have lasted a whole month?

Nothing becomes offensive so quickly as grief; when fresh, it finds someone to console it and attracts one or another to itself; but after becoming chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.

For it is either assumed or foolish.

Now is the time for you to reflect, not only that all things are mortal, but also that their mortality is subject to no fixed law.

Whatever can happen at any time can happen to-day.

Let us therefore reflect, my beloved Lucilius, that we shall soon come to the goal which this friend, to our own sorrow, has reached.

Hence I worship the discoveries of wisdom and their discoverers; to enter, as it were, into the inheritance of many predecessors is a delight.

It was for me that they laid up this treasure; it was for me that they toiled.

But we should play the part of a careful householder; we should increase what we have inherited. This inheritance shall pass from me to my descendants larger than before.

it was for me that they toiled. But we should play the part of a careful householder; we should increase what we have inherited. This inheritance shall pass from me to my descendants larger than before.

Much still remains to do, and much will always remain, and he who shall be born a thousand ages hence will not be barred from his opportunity of adding something further.

But even if the old masters have discovered everything, one thing will be always new,—the application and the scientific study and classification of the discoveries made by others. Assume that prescriptions have been handed down to us for the healing of the eyes;

Then compound these several prescriptions, watch for the right time of their application, and apply the proper treatment in each case.

The cures for the spirit also have been discovered by the ancients; but it is our task to learn the method and the time of treatment.

Our predecessors have worked much improvement, but have not worked out the problem. They deserve respect, however, and should be worshipped with a divine ritual. Why should I not keep statues of great men to kindle my enthusiasm, and celebrate their birthdays?

it is its own great glory, and it hallows the body in which it dwells. At any rate, I have begun to regard Claranus in a different light; he seems to me handsome, and as well-set-up in body as in mind.

A great man can spring from a hovel; so can a beautiful and great soul from an ugly and insignificant body.

For this reason Nature seems to me to breed certain men of this stamp with the idea of proving that virtue springs into birth in any place whatever.

is, in my opinion, mistaken.

For virtue needs nothing to set it off; it is its own great glory, and it hallows the body in which it dwells.

At any rate, I have begun to regard Claranus in a different light; he seems to me handsome, and as well-set-up in body as in mind. A great man can spring from a hovel;

Honour, also, permits of no addition; for it is honourable because of the very qualities which I have mentioned. What then? Do you think that propriety, justice, lawfulness, do not also belong to the same type, and that they are kept within fixed limits?

The ability to increase is proof that a thing is still imperfect.

The good, in every instance, is subject to these same laws. The advantage of the state and that of the individual are yoked together; indeed it is as impossible to separate them as to separate the commendable from the desirable. Therefore, virtues are mutually equal;

If you grant this, honour has wholly perished. And why? Let me tell you: it is because no act is honourable that is done by an unwilling agent, that is compulsory.

Every honourable act is voluntary.

Alloy it with reluctance, complaints, cowardice, or fear, and it loses its best characteristic—self-approval. That which is not free cannot be honourable; for fear means slavery. The honourable is wholly free from anxiety and is calm;

Wild beasts show no favouritism among their offspring; they lie down in order to suckle all alike; birds make fair distribution of their food. Ulysses hastens back to the rocks of his Ithaca as eagerly as Agamemnon speeds to the kingly walls of Mycenae.

For no man loves his native land because it is great; he loves it because it is his own.

And what is the purpose of all this? That you may know that virtue regards all her works in the same light, as if they were her children, showing equal kindness to all, and still deeper kindness to those which encounter hardships;

Hence it is without reason that both these things distract and sting the spirit; the one is not worthy of joy, nor the other of fear.

It is reason alone that is unchangeable, that holds fast to its decisions.

For reason is not a slave to the senses, but a ruler over them. Reason is equal to reason, as one straight line to another; therefore virtue also is equal to virtue. Virtue is nothing else than right reason. All virtues are reasons.

There is no evil that does not offer inducements. Avarice promises money; luxury, a varied assortment of pleasures; ambition, a purple robe and applause, and the influence which results from applause, and all that influence can do.

Vices tempt you by the rewards which they offer; but in the life of which I speak, you must live without being paid.

Scarcely will a whole life-time suffice to bring our vices into subjection and to make them accept the yoke, swollen as they are by long-continued indulgence; and still less, if we cut into our brief span by any interruptions.

Make yourself believe that all ignorant men are wrong when they say: “It is a beautiful thing to die one’s own death.” But there is no man who does not die his own death. What is more, you may reflect on this thought:

No one dies except on his own day.

You are throwing away none of your own time; for what you leave behind does not belong to you. Farewell.

My second reason is, that the remedies which are most helpful are those which are not interrupted. You should not allow your quiet, or the oblivion to which you have consigned your former life, to be broken into.

Give your eyes time to unlearn what they have seen, and your ears to grow accustomed to more wholesome words.

Whenever you stir abroad you will meet, even as you pass from one place to another, things that will bring back your old cravings.

To such a life, as you are aware, one should not always cling.

For mere living is not a good, but living well.

Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. He will mark in what place, with whom, and how he is to conduct his existence, and what he is about to do.

Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. He will mark in what place, with whom, and how he is to conduct his existence, and what he is about to do.

He always reflects concerning the quality, and not the quantity, of his life.

As soon as there are many events in his life that give him trouble and disturb his peace of mind, he sets himself free.

Since, however, the value of advice depends mostly on the time when it is given, it must necessarily result that by the time my opinion on certain matters reaches you, the opposite opinion is the better.

For advice conforms to circumstances; and our circumstances are carried along, or rather whirled along.

Accordingly, advice should be produced at short notice; and even this is too late; it should “grow while we work,” as the saying is. And I propose to show you how you may discover the method.

The artist may have his colours all prepared, but he cannot produce a likeness unless he has already made up his mind what he wishes to paint.

The reason we make mistakes is because we all consider the parts of life, but never life as a whole.

The archer must know what he is seeking to hit; then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.

The reason we make mistakes is because we all consider the parts of life, but never life as a whole. The archer must know what he is seeking to hit; then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.

When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind. Chance must necessarily have great influence over our lives, because we live by chance.

The archer must know what he is seeking to hit; then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.

When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Chance must necessarily have great influence over our lives, because we live by chance. It is the case with certain men, however, that they do not know that they know certain things.

then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Chance must necessarily have great influence over our lives, because we live by chance.

It is the case with certain men, however, that they do not know that they know certain things.

Similarly, we regard those things with respect to which we are all infirm of disposition, as hard and beyond endurance, forgetting what a torment it is to many men to abstain from wine or to be routed from their beds at break of day.

These actions are not essentially difficult; it is we ourselves that are soft and flabby.

We must pass judgment concerning great matters with greatness of soul; otherwise, that which is really our fault will seem to be their fault.

otherwise, that which is really our fault will seem to be their fault. So it is that certain objects which are perfectly straight, when sunk in water appear to the onlooker as bent or broken off.

It matters not only what you see, but with what eyes you see it; our souls are too dull of vision to perceive the truth.

But give me an unspoiled and sturdy-minded young man; he will pronounce more fortunate one who sustains on unbending shoulders the whole weight of adversity, who stands out superior to Fortune.

and it will surely slip back unless it keeps struggling ahead; for if a man slackens at all in zeal and faithful application, he must retrograde.

No one can resume his progress at the point where he left off.

Therefore let us press on and persevere. There remains much more of the road than we have put behind us; but the greater part of progress is the desire to progress.

for if a man slackens at all in zeal and faithful application, he must retrograde. No one can resume his progress at the point where he left off. Therefore let us press on and persevere.

There remains much more of the road than we have put behind us; but the greater part of progress is the desire to progress.

I fully understand what this task is. It is a thing which I desire, and I desire it with all my heart. I see that you also have been aroused and are hastening with great zeal towards infinite beauty. Let us, then, hasten;

Let us, then, hasten; only on these terms will life be a boon to us; otherwise, there is delay, and indeed disgraceful delay, while we busy ourselves with revolting things.

Let us see to it that all time belongs to us.

This, however, cannot be unless first of all our own selves begin to belong to us. And when will it be our privilege to despise both kinds of fortune?

For anything that can be added to is imperfect; anything that can suffer loss is not lasting; but let the man whose happiness is to be lasting, rejoice in what is truly his own. Now all that which the crowd gapes after, ebbs and flows.

Fortune gives us nothing which we can really own.

But even these gifts of Fortune please us when reason has tempered and blended them to our taste; for it is reason which makes acceptable to us even external goods that are disagreeable to use if we absorb them too greedily.

Besides, no man in public life thinks of the many whom he has outstripped; he thinks rather of those by whom he is outstripped. And these men find it less pleasing to see many behind them than annoying to see anyone ahead of them.

That is the trouble with every sort of ambition; it does not look back.

Nor is it ambition alone that is fickle, but also every sort of craving, because it always begins where it ought to end.

Let us therefore believe Sextius when he shows us the path of perfect beauty, and cries: “This is ‘the way to the stars’; this is the way, by observing thrift, self-restraint, and courage!”

The gods are not disdainful or envious; they open the door to you; they lend a hand as you climb.

Do you marvel that man goes to the gods? God comes to men; nay, he comes nearer,—he comes into men. No mind that has not God, is good. Divine seeds are scattered throughout our mortal bodies;

Do you ask why virtue needs nothing? Because it is pleased with what it has, and does not lust after that which it has not.

Whatever is enough is abundant in the eyes of virtue.

Dissent from this judgment, and duty and loyalty will not abide. For one who desires to exhibit these two qualities must endure much that the world calls evil; we must sacrifice many things to which we are addicted, thinking them to be goods.

The fate of many cities will prove the truth of this; their sway has ceased at the very prime because they were given to luxury, and excess has ruined all that had been won by virtue. We should fortify ourselves against such calamities.

But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences.

If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured.

We should fortify ourselves against such calamities. But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences.

If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured.

Do you wish to know what this weapon of defence is?

In the same way, souls that enjoy being sick and that seize upon excuses for sorrow are saddened by events long past and effaced from the records.

Past and future are both absent; we feel neither of them.

But there can be no pain except as the result of what you feel. Farewell.

I prefer, however, that our conversation on matters so important should not be meagre and dry; for even philosophy does not renounce the company of cleverness. One should not, however, bestow very much attention upon mere words.

Let this be the kernel of my idea: let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.

That man has fulfilled his promise who is the same person both when you see him and when you hear him.

We shall not fail to see what sort of man he is and how large a man he is, if only he is one and the same.

Our words should aim not to please, but to help.

If, however, you can attain eloquence without painstaking, and if you either are naturally gifted or can gain eloquence at slight cost, make the most of it and apply it to the noblest uses.

When shall you so plant in your mind that which you have learned, that it cannot escape? When shall you put it all into practice? For it is not sufficient merely to commit these things to memory, like other matters; they must be practically tested.

He is not happy who only knows them, but he who does them.

You reply: “What? Are there no degrees of happiness below your ‘happy’ man? Is there a sheer descent immediately below wisdom?” I think not.

You ask what this freedom is? It means not fearing either men or gods; it means not craving wickedness or excess; it incans possessing supreme power over oneself.

And it is a priceless good to be master of oneself.

Farewell.

I have been hearing the lectures of a philosopher; four days have already passed since I have been attending his school and listening to the harangue, which begins at two o’clock. “A fine time of life for that!” you say. Yes, fine indeed!

Now what is more foolish than refusing to learn, simply because one has not been learning for a long time?

“What do you mean? Must I follow the fashion set by the fops and youngsters?” But I am pretty well off if this is the only thing that discredits my declining years. Men of all ages are admitted to this class-room. You retort:

But if I, an old man, go to the theatre, and am carried to the races, and allow no duel in the arena to be fought to a finish without my presence, shall I blush to attend a philosopher’s lecture?

You should keep learning as long as you are ignorant,—even to the end of your life, if there is anything in the proverb.

And the proverb suits the present case as well as any: “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” For all that, there is also something which I can teach in that school. You ask, do you, what I can teach?

“How much progress shall I make?” you ask. Just as much as you try to make. Why do you wait?

Wisdom comes haphazard to no man.

Money will come of its own accord; titles will be given to you; influence and authority will perhaps be thrust upon you; but virtue will not fall upon you by chance. Neither is knowledge thereof to be won by light effort or small toil;

None of those who have been raised to a loftier height by riches and honours is really great. Why then does he seem great to you? It is because you are measuring the pedestal along with the man.

A dwarf is not tall, though he stand upon a mountain-top; a colossal statue will still be tall, though you place it in a well.

This is the error under which we labour; this is the reason why we are imposed upon: we value no man at what he is, but add to the man himself the trappings in which he is clothed.

To-day it is you who threaten me with these terrors; but I have always threatened myself with them, and have prepared myself as a man to meet man’s destiny.”

If an evil has been pondered beforehand, the blow is gentle when it comes.

To the fool, however, and to him who trusts in fortune, each event as it arrives “comes in a new and sudden form,” and a large part of evil, to the inexperienced, consists in its novelty.

But you,—did you believe that you would not some day reach the goal towards which you have always been travelling?

No journey but has its end.

You think, I suppose, that it is now in order for me to cite some examples of great men. No, I shall cite rather the case of a boy. The story of the Spartan lad has been preserved:

Some persons, you see, boast of their long lives; but who could have endured the old lady if she had had the luck to complete her hundredth year?

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. Farewell.

but the thought of my kind old father kept me back. For I reflected, not how bravely I had the power to die, but how little power he had to bear bravely the loss of me. And so I commanded myself to live.

For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.

Now I shall tell you what consoled me during those days, stating at the outset that these very aids to my peace of mind were as efficacious as medicine. Honourable consolation results in a cure; and whatever has uplifted the soul helps the body also.

Now I shall tell you what consoled me during those days, stating at the outset that these very aids to my peace of mind were as efficacious as medicine. Honourable consolation results in a cure; and whatever has uplifted the soul helps the body also.

My studies were my salvation.

I place it to the credit of philosophy that I recovered and regained my strength. I owe my life to philosophy, and that is the least of my obligations! My friends, too, helped me greatly toward good health;

I owe my life to philosophy, and that is the least of my obligations! My friends, too, helped me greatly toward good health; I used to be comforted by their cheering words, by the hours they spent at my bedside, and by their conversation.

Nothing, my excellent Lucilius, refreshes and aids a sick man so much as the affection of his friends; nothing so steals away the expectation and the fear of death.

In fact, I could not believe that, if they survived me, I should be dying at all. Yes, I repeat, it seemed to me that I should continue to live, not with them, but through them.

keep a stout heart and it will soon cease”; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer.

A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is.

I hold that we should do away with complaint about past sufferings and with all language like this: “None has ever been worse off than I. What sufferings, what evils have I endured! No one has thought that I shall recover.

Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do.

That which has been long expected comes more gently.

Farewell.

I am glad, beloved Lucilius, that we are occupied with this ideal, that we pursue it with all our might, even though few know it, or none.

Fame is the shadow of virtue; it will attend virtue even against her will.

But, as the shadow sometimes precedes and sometimes follows or even lags behind, so fame sometimes goes before us and shows herself in plain sight, and sometimes is in the rear, and is all the greater in proportion as she is late in coming, when …

Pretence accomplishes nothing. Few are deceived by a mask that is easily drawn over the face. Truth is the same in every part. Things which deceive us have no real substance.

Lies are thin stuff; they are transparent, if you examine them with care.

Farewell.

… both during his life and after his death, provided he has followed her loyally, provided he has not decked himself out or painted himself up, but has been always the same, whether he appeared before men’s eyes after being announced, or suddenly and without preparation.

Pretence accomplishes nothing. Few are deceived by a mask that is easily drawn over the face.

Truth is the same in every part. Things which deceive us have no real substance. Lies are thin stuff; they are transparent, if you examine them with care. Farewell.

Yonder athletes must have copious food, copious drink, copious quantities of oil, and long training besides; but you can acquire virtue without equipment and without expense.

All that goes to make you a good man lies within yourself.

And what do you need in order to become good? To wish it.

In exchange for freedom they pay out the savings which they have scraped together by cheating their own bellies; shall you not be eager to attain liberty at any price, seeing that you claim it as your birthright? Why cast glances toward your strong-box?

Liberty cannot be bought.

It is therefore useless to enter in your ledger the item of “Freedom,” for freedom is possessed neither by those who have bought it, nor by those who have sold it. You must give this good to yourself, and seek it from yourself.

If you wish to see what he amounts to, and to know his full worth, take off his diadem; much evil lurks beneath it. But why do I speak of others?

If you wish to set a value on yourself, put away your money, your estates, your honours, and look into your own soul.

At present, you are taking the word of others for what you are. Farewell.

In this case, however, caution can effect nothing but to make you ungenerous. For if you wish to avoid such a danger, you will not confer benefits; and so, that benefits may not be lost with another man, they will be lost to yourself.

It is better, however, to get no return than to confer no benefits.

Even after a poor crop one should sow again; for often losses due to continued barrenness of an unproductive soil have been made good by one year's fertility.

Now it makes a great deal of difference whether you give outright, or come to a man’s assistance, whether your generosity saves him, or sets him up in life.

Often the gift is small, but the consequences great.

And what a distinction do you imagine there is between taking something which one lacks,—something which was offered,—and receiving a benefit in order to confer one in return?

The ungrateful man tortures and torments himself; he hates the gifts which he has accepted, because he must make a return for them, and he tries to belittle their value, but he really enlarges and exaggerates the injuries which he has received.

And what is more wretched than a man who forgets his benefits and clings to his injuries?

Wisdom, on the other hand, lends grace to every benefit, and of her own free will commends it to her own favour, and delights her soul by continued recollection thereof. Evil men have but one pleasure in benefits, and a very short-lived pleasure at that;

It is no slight price that a man must pay for being grateful.

We hold nothing dearer than a benefit, so long as we are seeking one; we hold nothing cheaper after we have received it.

Do you ask what it is that makes us forget benefits received? It is our extreme greed for receiving others. We consider not what we have obtained, but what we are to seek.

“Keep for yourself what you have received; I do not ask it back; I do not demand it. Let it be safe to have conferred a favour.”

There is no worse hatred than that which springs from shame at the desecration of a benefit.

Farewell.

Both extremes are to be deprecated—both tension and sluggishness. I hold that he who lies on a perfumed couch is no less dead than he who is dragged along by the executioner’s hook.

Leisure without study is death; it is a tomb for the living man.

What then is the advantage of retirement? As if the real causes of our anxieties did not follow us across the seas! What hiding-place is there, where the fear of death does not enter?

Though it be assaulted by many engines, Fortune can find no passage into it. The soul stands on unassailable ground, if it has abandoned external things; it is independent in its own fortress; and every weapon that is hurled falls short of the mark.

Fortune has not the long reach with which we credit her; she can seize none except him that clings to her.

Let us then recoil from her as far as we are able. This will be possible for us only through knowledge of self and of the world of Nature.

Do you propose to construct catchwords for me, or to string together petty syllogisms?

It takes great weapons to strike down great monsters.

You recall the fierce serpent in Africa, more frightful to the Roman legions than the war itself, and assailed in vain by arrows and slings;

I shall therefore do as you bid, and shall gladly inform you by letter what I am doing, and in what sequence. I shall keep watching myself continually, and—a most useful habit—shall review each day.

For this is what makes us wicked: that no one of us looks back over his own life.

Our thoughts are devoted only to what we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future always depend on the past.

I shall keep watching myself continually, and—a most useful habit—shall review each day. For this is what makes us wicked: that no one of us looks back over his own life. Our thoughts are devoted only to what we are about to do.

And yet our plans for the future always depend on the past.

To-day has been unbroken; no one has filched the slightest part of it from me. The whole time has been divided between rest and reading.

for if you once permit them to get a start, they will increase along with their causes, and they will be of whatever extent they shall grow to be. Moreover, no matter how small these vices are, they grow greater.

That which is harmful never keeps within bounds.

No matter how trifling diseases are at the beginning, they creep on apace; and sometimes the slightest augmentation of disease lays low the enfeebled body!

How have I the power to bring something to a close, when I have not had the power to check it at the beginning?

For it is easier to keep a thing out than to keep it under after you have let it in.

Some men have made a distinction as follows, saying: “If a man has self-control and wisdom, he is indeed at peace as regards the attitude and habit of his mind, but not as regards the outcome.

if possible, in his own country—if not, in exile; if possible, as a commander—if not, as a common soldier; if possible, in sound health—if not, enfeebled.

Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy.

Animal-tamers are unerring; they take the most savage animals, which may well terrify those who encounter them, and subdue them to the will of man; not content with having driven out their ferocity, they even tame them so that they dwell in the same abode.

My false embarrassment about the truth still holds out, you see; and whenever we meet a more sumptuous party I blush in spite of myself—proof that this conduct which I approve and applaud has not yet gained a firm and steadfast dwelling-place within me.

He who blushes at riding in a rattle-trap will boast when he rides in style.

So my progress is still insufficient. I have not yet the courage openly to acknowledge my thriftiness. Even yet I am bothered by what other travellers think of me.

Steeds decked with purple and with tapestry, With golden harness hanging from their necks, Champing their yellow bits, all clothed in gold?

Neither master nor mule is improved by such trappings.

Marcus Cato the Censor, whose existence helped the state as much as did Scipio’s,—for while Scipio fought against our enemies, Cato fought against our bad morals,—used to ride a donkey, and a donkey, at that, which carried saddle-bags containing the master’s necessaries.

What then? Was it his money that made him unclean, or did he himself besmirch his money?

Money tumbles into the hands of certain men as a shilling tumbles down a sewer.

Virtue stands above all such things. It is appraised in coin of its own minting; and it deems none of these random windfalls to be good. But medicine and navigation do not forbid themselves and their followers to marvel at such things.

So the Supreme Good has also its own abode. It does not grow where ivory grows, or iron.

Do you ask where the Supreme Good dwells? In the soul.

And unless the soul be pure and holy, there is no room in it for God.

Therefore, goods cannot spring from evil. For if, as you object, sacrilege is an evil for the single reason that it brings on much evil, if you but absolve sacrilege of its punishment and pledge it immunity, sacrilege will be wholly good.

And yet the worst punishment for crime lies in the crime itself.

You are mistaken, I maintain, if you propose to reserve your punishments for the hangman or the prison; the crime is punished immediately after it is committed; nay, rather, at the moment when it is committed.

They do, indeed, uplift and broaden the spirit, but without puffing it up. Those things which are goods produce confidence, but riches produce shamelessness. The things which are goods give us greatness of soul, but riches give us arrogance.

And arrogance is nothing else than a false show of greatness.

“According to that argument,” the objector says, “riches are not only not a good, but are a positive evil.” Now they would be an evil if they did harm of themselves, and if, as I remarked, it were the efficient cause which inheres in them;

One should linger upon them only so long as the mind can occupy itself with nothing greater; they are our apprenticeship, not our real work. Hence you see why “liberal studies” are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free-born gentleman.

But there is only one really liberal study,—that which gives a man his liberty.

It is the study of wisdom, and that is lofty, brave, and great-souled. All other studies are puny and puerile.

you compute the distances between the stars; there is nothing which does not come within the scope of your calculations. But if you are a real master of your profession, measure me the mind of man! Tell me how great it is, or how puny!

You know what a straight line is; but how does it benefit you if you do not know what is straight in this life of ours?

I come next to the person who boasts his knowledge of the heavenly bodies, who knows

If the morrow treats me kindly, it is a sort of deception; but it does not deceive me even at that. For just as I know that all things can happen, so I know, too, that they will not happen in every case.

I am ready for favourable events in every case, but I am prepared for evil.

In this discussion you must bear with me if I do not follow the regular course. For I do not consent to admit painting into the list of liberal arts, any more than sculpture, marble-working, and other helps toward luxury.

Our ancestors used to teach their children nothing that could be learned while lying down. But neither the new system nor the old teaches or nourishes virtue.

For 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?

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.

Kindliness 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.

Wisdom communicates facts and not words; and it may be true that the memory is more to be depended upon when it has no support outside itself.

Wisdom is a large and spacious thing.

It needs plenty of free room. One must learn about things divine and human, the past and the future, the ephemeral and the eternal; and one must learn about Time. See how many questions arise concerning time alone:

… that man as blameworthy who puts superfluous things on the same footing with useful things, and in his house makes a lavish display of costly objects, but do not deem him blameworthy who has allowed himself to become engrossed with the useless furniture of learning?

This desire to know more than is sufficient is a sort of intemperance.

Why? Because this unseemly pursuit of the liberal arts makes men troublesome, wordy, tactless, self-satisfied bores, who fail to learn the essentials just because they have learned the non-essentials. Didymus the scholar wrote four thousand books.

but think how much superfluous and unpractical matter the philosophers contain! Of their own accord they also have descended to establishing nice divisions of syllables, to determining the true meaning of conjunctions and prepositions; they have been envious of the scholars, envious of the mathematicians.

They have taken over into their own art all the superfluities of these other arts; the result is that they know more about careful speaking than about careful living.

Let me tell you what evils are due to over-nice exactness, and what an enemy it is of truth!

I shall therefore comply with your demand, and shall divide philosophy into parts, but not into scraps.

For it is useful that philosophy should be divided, but not chopped into bits.

Just as it is hard to take in what is indefinitely large, so it is hard to take in what is indefinitely small. The people are divided into tribes, the army into centuries.

As there is a great difference between avarice and wealth, the one being the subject of the craving and the other its object, so between philosophy and wisdom. For the one is a result and a reward of the other.

Philosophy does the going, and wisdom is the goal.

Wisdom is that which the Greeks call σοφία. The Romans also were wont to use this word in the sense in which they now use “philosophy” also.

Do you really desire my remedies to stop before your vices? But I shall speak of my remedies all the more, and just because you offer objections I shall keep on talking.

Medicine begins to do good at the time when a touch makes the diseased body tingle with pain.

I shall utter words that will help men even against their will. At times you should allow words other than compliments to reach your ears, and because as individuals you are unwilling to hear the truth, hear it collectively.

How slight a portion of all that game, whose taking was fraught with danger, does the master’s sick and squeamish stomach relish? How slight a portion of all those shell-fish, imported from so far, slips down that insatiable gullet?

Poor wretches, do you not know that your appetites are bigger than your bellies?

”

build your manifold structures, your huge piles,—you are nevertheless but individuals, and puny ones at that!

What profit to you are your many bed-chambers?

You sleep in one. No place is yours where you yourselves are not.”

Talk in this way to other men,—provided that while you talk you also listen; write in this way,—provided that while you write you read, remembering that everything you hear or read, is to be applied to conduct, and to the alleviation of passion’s fury.

Study, not in order to add anything to your knowledge, but to make your knowledge better.

Farewell.

This fellowship remained unspoiled for a long time, until avarice tore the community asunder and became the cause of poverty, even in the case of those whom she herself had most enriched.

For men cease to possess all things the moment they desire all things for their own.

But the first men and those who sprang from them, still unspoiled, followed nature, having one man as both their leader and their law, entrusting themselves to the control of one better than themselves.

That is why it was to the mind that a ruler was assigned; and for that reason the greatest happiness rested with those peoples among whom a man could not be the more powerful unless he were the better.

For that man can safely accomplish what he will who thinks he can do nothing except what he ought to do.

Accordingly, in that age which is maintained to be the golden age, Posidonius holds that the government was under the jurisdiction of the wise. They kept their hands under control, and protected the weaker from the stronger.

They gave advice, both to do and not to do; they showed what was useful and what was useless. Their forethought provided that their subjects should lack nothing; their bravery warded off dangers; their kindness enriched and adorned their subjects.

For them ruling was a service, not an exercise of royalty.

No ruler tried his power against those to whom he owed the beginnings of his power;

Forked poles erected at either end propped up their houses. With close-packed branches and with leaves heaped up and laid sloping they contrived a drainage for even the heaviest rains. Beneath such dwellings, they lived, but they lived in peace.

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

On another point also I differ from Posidonius, when he holds that mechanical tools were the invention of wise men. For on that basis one might maintain that those were wise who taught the arts

Those were wise men, or at any rate like the wise, who found the care of the body a problem easy to solve.

The things that are indispensable require no elaborate pains for their acquisition; it is only the luxuries that call for labour.

Follow nature, and you will need no skilled craftsmen.

Those were wise men, or at any rate like the wise, who found the care of the body a problem easy to solve. The things that are indispensable require no elaborate pains for their acquisition; it is only the luxuries that call for labour.

Follow nature, and you will need no skilled craftsmen.

Nature did not wish us to be harassed. For whatever she forced upon us, she equipped us. “But cold cannot be endured by the naked body.” What then?

None of these was imposed upon us by her; none of them had to be painfully sought out that our lives might be prolonged.

All things were ready for us at our birth; it is we that have made everything difficult for ourselves, through our disdain for what is easy.

Houses, shelter, creature comforts, food, and all that has now become the source of vast trouble, were ready at hand, free to all, and obtainable for trifling pains. For the limit everywhere corresponded to the need;

Or our signs for whole words, which enable us to take down a speech, however rapidly uttered, matching speed of tongue by speed of hand? All this sort of thing has been devised by the lowest grade of slaves.

Wisdom’s seat is higher; she trains not the hands, but is mistress of our minds.

Would you know what wisdom has brought forth to light, what she has accomplished?

He has forbidden us to give heed to false opinions, and has weighed the value of each thing by a true standard of appraisement.

He has condemned those pleasures with which remorse is intermingled, and has praised those goods which will always satisfy; and he has published the truth abroad that he is most happy who has no need of happiness, and that he is most powerful who has power over himself.

I am not speaking of that philosophy which has placed the citizen outside his country and the gods outside the universe, and which has bestowed virtue upon pleasure, but rather of that philosophy which counts nothing good except what is honourable,—one which cannot be cajoled …

But avarice broke in upon a condition so happily ordained, and, by its eagerness to lay something away and to turn it to its own private use, made all things the property of others, and reduced itself from boundless wealth to straitened need.

It was avarice that introduced poverty and, by craving much, lost all.

And so, although she now tries to make good her loss, although she adds one estate to another, evicting a neighbour either by buying him out or by wronging him, although she extends her country-seats to the size of provinces and defines ownership as meaning …

Care vexes us in our purple, and routs us from our beds with the sharpest of goads; but how soft was the sleep the hard earth bestowed upon the men of that day!

No fretted and panelled ceilings hung over them, but as they lay beneath the open sky the stars glided quietly above them, and the firmament, night’s noble pageant, marched swiftly by, conducting its mighty task in silence.

For them by day, as well as by night, the visions of this most glorious abode were free and open. It was their joy to watch the constellations as they sank from mid-heaven, and others, again, as they rose from their hidden abodes.

Such a dwelling was in accordance with nature; therein it was a joy to live, fearing neither the dwelling itself nor for its safety.

In these days, however, our houses constitute a large portion of our dread.

But no matter how excellent and guileless was the life of the men of that age, they were not wise men; for that title is reserved for the highest achievement.

… men of that day, who had found in some dense grove protection against the sun, and security against the severity of winter or of rain in their mean hiding-places, spent their lives under the branches of the trees and passed tranquil nights without a sigh.

Care vexes us in our purple, and routs us from our beds with the sharpest of goads; but how soft was the sleep the hard earth bestowed upon the men of that day!

No fretted and panelled ceilings hung over them, but as they lay beneath the open sky the stars glided quietly above them, and the firmament, night’s noble pageant, marched swiftly by, conducting its mighty task in silence.

However, not all were endowed with mental faculties of highest perfection, though in all cases their native powers were more sturdy than ours and more fitted for toil.

For nature does not bestow virtue; it is an art to become good.

They, at least, searched not in the lowest dregs of the earth for gold, nor yet for silver or transparent stones;

She does not always attack in one way, or even with her full strength; at one time she summons our own hands against us; at another time, content with her own powers, she makes use of no agent in devising perils for us.

No time is exempt; in the midst of our very pleasures there spring up causes of suffering.

War arises in the midst of peace, and that which we depended upon for protection is transformed into a cause of fear; friend becomes enemy, ally becomes foeman. The summer calm is stirred into sudden storms, wilder than the storms of winter.

Nay, he who has said “a day” has granted too long a postponement to swift-coming misfortune; an hour, an instant of time, suffices for the overthrow of empires!

It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.

Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities, are in a whirl.

It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.

Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities, are in a whirl.

Amid the greatest calm terror arises, and though no external agencies stir up commotion, yet evils burst forth from sources whence they were least expected.

When, however, we come to the end which awaits mortals, he says: “Depart, ambition! To all creatures that burden the earth let one and the same law apply!”

For enduring all things, we are equal; no one is more frail than another, no one more certain of his own life on the morrow.

Alexander, king of Macedon, began to study geometry; unhappy man, because he would thereby learn how puny was that earth of which he had seized but a fraction! Unhappy man, I repeat, because he was bound to understand that he was bearing a false title.

“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?”

What madness it is to be afraid of disrepute in the judgment of the disreputable!

Just as you have had no cause for shrinking in terror from the talk of men, so you have no cause now to shrink from these things, which you would never fear had not their talk forced fear upon you.

For it is naught but this that keeps the soul from being bowed down, that stands its ground against Fortune; whatever the condition of their affairs may be, it keeps men untroubled. And that alone is a good which is never subject to impairment.

That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.

If the case is otherwise, then things which do not pertain to us will begin to have great influence over us. But who desires Fortune to have the upper hand, or what sensible man prides himself upon that which is not his own?

If the case is otherwise, then things which do not pertain to us will begin to have great influence over us. But who desires Fortune to have the upper hand, or what sensible man prides himself upon that which is not his own?

What is the happy life? It is peace of mind, and lasting tranquillity.

This will be yours if you possess greatness of soul; it will be yours if you possess the steadfastness that resolutely clings to a good judgment just reached. How does a man reach this condition?

In our eyes, it may perhaps be less visible and less luminous than before; but as regards itself it is the same and, like the sun when he is eclipsed, is still, though in secret, putting forth its strength.

Disasters, therefore, and losses, and wrongs, have only the same power over virtue that a cloud has over the sun.

We meet with one person who maintains that a wise man who has met with bodily misfortune is neither wretched nor happy.

For pleasure does not deserve that. virtue should even glance at it. Now what is the chief thing in virtue?

It is the quality of not needing a single day beyond the present, and of not reckoning up the days that are ours; in the slightest possible moment of time virtue completes an eternity of good.

These goods seem to us incredible and transcending man’s nature; for we measure its grandeur by the standard of our own weakness, and we call our vices by the name of virtue.

And if it makes use of its powers and stretches upward into its proper region it is by no alien path that it struggles toward the heights.

It would be a great task to journey heavenwards; the soul but returns thither.

When once it has found the road, it boldly marches on, scornful of all things. It casts, no backward glance at wealth;

nor is it subservient to that over which it is set in mastery.

For no man is free who is a slave to his body.

Indeed, omitting all the other masters which are brought into being by excessive care for the body, the sway which the body itself exercises is captious and fastidious.

But tell me, pray, do you consider it fairer that you should obey Nature, or that Nature should obey you? And what difference does it make how soon you depart from a place which you must depart from sooner or later?

We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly; for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul.

A life is really long if it is a full life; but fulness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself.

We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly; for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul.

A life is really long if it is a full life; but fulness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself.

What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness? A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life. Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying.

but fulness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself. What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness?

A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life.

Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying. He has lived eighty years, has he? That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death! Your other friend, however, departed in the bloom of his manhood.

His age may have been incomplete, but his life was complete. The other man has lived eighty years, has he? Nay, he has existed eighty years, unless perchance you mean by “he has lived” what we mean when we say that a tree “lives.”

Pray, let us see to it, my dear Lucilius, that our lives, like jewels of great price, be noteworthy not because of their width but because of their weight.

Let us measure them by their performance, not by their duration.

Pray, let us see to it, my dear Lucilius, that our lives, like jewels of great price, be noteworthy not because of their width but because of their weight.

Let us measure them by their performance, not by their duration.

Would you know wherein lies the difference between this hardy man who, despising Fortune, has served through every campaign of life and has attained to life’s Supreme Good, and that other person over whose head many years have passed?

nay, I have looked upon every day as if it were my last. Why ask the date of my birth, or whether I am still enrolled on the register of the younger men? What I have is my own.

Just as one of small stature can be a perfect man, so a life of small compass can be a perfect life.

Age ranks among the external things. How long I am to exist is not mine to decide, but how long I shall go on existing in my present way is in my own control.

What I have is my own. Just as one of small stature can be a perfect man, so a life of small compass can be a perfect life. Age ranks among the external things.

How long I am to exist is not mine to decide, but how long I shall go on existing in my present way is in my own control.

This is the only thing you have the right to require of me,—that I shall cease to measure out an inglorious age as it were in darkness, and devote myself to living instead of being carried along past life.

Do you believe that anyone is so foolishly covetous of life that he would rather have his throat cut in the dressing-room than in the amphitheatre? It is by no longer an interval than this that we precede one another.

Death visits each and all; the slayer soon follows the slain.

It is an insignificant trifle, after all, that people discuss with so much concern. And anyhow, what does it matter for how long a time you avoid that which you cannot escape? Farewell.

A great deal of good; for we sometimes know facts without paying attention to them. Advice is not teaching; it merely engages the attention and rouses us, and concentrates the memory, and keeps it from losing grip.

We miss much that is set before our very eyes.

Advice is, in fact, a sort of exhortation. The mind often tries not to notice even that which lies before our eyes; we must therefore force upon it the knowledge of things that are perfectly well known.

The soul carries within itself the seed of everything that is honourable, and this seed is stirred to growth by advice, as a spark that is fanned by a gentle breeze develops its natural fire.

Virtue is aroused by a touch, a shock.

Moreover, there are certain things which, though in the mind, yet are not ready to hand but begin to function easily as soon as they are put into words.

On this ground, you ought to say that consolation does not avail, and warning, and exhortation, and scolding, and praising; since they are all varieties of advice. It is by such methods that we arrive at a perfect condition of mind.

Nothing is more successful in bringing honourable influences to bear upon the mind, or in straightening out the wavering spirit that is prone to evil, than association with good men.

For the frequent seeing, the frequent hearing of them little by little sinks into the heart and acquires the force of precepts.

For the frequent seeing, the frequent hearing of them little by little sinks into the heart and acquires the force of precepts.

We are indeed uplifted merely by meeting wise men; and one can be helped by a great man even when he is silent.

I could not easily tell you how it helps us, though I am certain of the fact that I have received help in that way. Phaedo says: “Certain tiny animals do not leave any pain when they sting us;

We are not allowed, I maintain, to travel a straight road. Our parents and our slaves draw us into wrong.

Nobody confines his mistakes to himself; people sprinkle folly among their neighbours, and receive it from them in turn.

For this reason, in an individual, you find the vices of nations, because the nation has given them to the individual. Each man, in corrupting others, corrupts himself;

Who puts on the purple robe for the sake of flaunting it in no man’s eyes? Who uses gold plate when he dines alone? Who, as he flings himself down beneath the shadow of some rustic tree, displays in solitude the splendour of his luxury?

No one makes himself elegant only for his own beholding, or even for the admiration of a few friends or relatives.

Rather does he spread out his well-appointed vices in proportion to the size of the admiring crowd. It is so: claqueurs and witnesses are irritants of all our mad foibles. You can make us cease to crave, if you only make us cease to display.

Hence they are frightened and in a flutter whenever they look down the abrupt steep of their greatness. For they reflect that there are various ways of falling and that the topmost point is the most slippery.

Then they fear that for which they strove, and the good fortune which made them weighty in the eyes of others weighs more heavily upon themselves.

Then they praise easy leisure and independence; they hate the glamour and try to escape while their fortunes are still unimpaired. Then at last you may see them studying philosophy amid their fear, and hunting sound advice when their fortunes go awry.

We must set before our eyes the goal of the Supreme Good, towards which we may strive, and to which all our acts and words may have reference—just as sailors must guide their course according to a certain star.

Life without ideals is erratic: as soon as an ideal is to be set up, doctrines begin to be necessary.

I am sure you will admit that there is nothing more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, than the habit of timorous retreat.

Would you win over the gods? Then be a good man. Whoever imitates them, is worshipping them sufficiently. Then comes the second problem,—how to deal with men. What is our purpose? What precepts do we offer? Should we bid them refrain from bloodshed?

What a little thing it is not to harm one whom you ought to help!

It is indeed worthy of great praise, when man treats man with kindness! Shall we advise stretching forth the hand to the shipwrecked sailor, or pointing out the way to the wanderer, or sharing a crust with the starving?

Let us possess things in common; for birth is ours in common.

Our relations with one another are like a stone arch, which would collapse if the stones did not mutually support each other, and which is upheld in this very way.

Next, after considering gods and men, let us see how we should make use of things. It is useless for us to have mouthed out precepts, unless we begin by reflecting what opinion we ought to hold concerning everything—concerning poverty, riches, renown, disgrace, citizenship, exile.

Next, after considering gods and men, let us see how we should make use of things. It is useless for us to have mouthed out precepts, unless we begin by reflecting what opinion we ought to hold concerning everything—concerning poverty, riches, renown, disgrace, citizenship, exile.

Let us banish rumour and set a value upon each thing, asking what it is and not what it is called.

Now let us turn to a consideration of the virtues. Some persons will advise us to rate prudence very high, to cherish bravery, and to cleave more closely, if possible, to justice than to all other qualities.

And what is the reason for this tossing to and fro? It is because nothing is clear to them, because they make use of a most unsure criterion—rumour.

If you would always desire the same things, you must desire the truth.

But one cannot attain the truth without doctrines; for doctrines embrace the whole of life.

If you ask me, I think that for a man there is no misery unless there be something in the universe which he thinks miserable.

I shall not endure myself on that day when I find anything unendurable.

I am ill; but that is a part of my lot. My slaves have fallen sick, my income has gone off, my house is rickety, I have been assailed by losses, accidents, toil, and fear; this is a common thing. Nay, that was an understatement;

My slaves have fallen sick, my income has gone off, my house is rickety, I have been assailed by losses, accidents, toil, and fear; this is a common thing. Nay, that was an understatement; it was an inevitable thing.

Such affairs come by order, and not by accident.

If you will believe me, it is my inmost emotions that I am just now disclosing to you: when everything seems to go hard and uphill, I have trained myself not merely to obey God, but to agree with His decisions.

I follow Him because my soul wills it, and not because I must. Nothing will ever happen to me that I shall receive with ill humour or with a wry face. I shall pay up all my taxes willingly.

Now all the things which cause us to groan or recoil, are part of the tax of life—things, my dear Lucilius, which you should never hope and never seek to escape.

It was disease of the bladder that made you apprehensive; downcast letters came from you; you were continually getting worse; I will touch the truth more closely, and say that you feared for your life.

downcast letters came from you; you were continually getting worse; I will touch the truth more closely, and say that you feared for your life. But come, did you not know, when you prayed for long life, that this was what you were praying for?

A long life includes all these troubles, just as a long journey includes dust and mud and rain.

“But,” you cry, “I wished to live, and at the same time to be immune from all ills.” Such a womanish cry does no credit to a man.

“May gods and goddesses alike forbid that Fortune keep you in luxury!” Ask yourself voluntarily which you would choose if some god gave you the choice—life in a café or life in a camp.

And yet life, Lucilius, is really a battle.

For this reason those who are tossed about at sea, who proceed uphill and downhill over toilsome crags and heights, who go on campaigns that bring the greatest danger, are heroes and front-rank fighters;

no, they are the vices of mankind and not of the times.

No era in history has ever been free from blame.

Moreover, if you once begin to take account of the irregularities belonging to any particular era, you will find—to man’s shame be it spoken—that sin never stalked abroad more openly than in Cato’s very presence.

All ages will produce men like Clodius, but not all ages men like Cato. We degenerate easily, because we lack neither guides nor associates in our wickedness, and the wickedness goes on of itself, even without guides or associates.

The road to vice is not only downhill, but steep; and many men are rendered incorrigible by the fact that, while in all other crafts errors bring shame to good craftsmen and cause vexation to those who go astray, the errors of life are a positive source of pleasure.

The pilot is not glad when his ship is thrown on her beam-ends; the physician is not glad when he buries his patient; the orator is not glad when the defendant loses a case through the fault of his advocate;

… souls which have been led even into the most depraved ways, and that men are not ignorant of what evil is but indifferent—I say that all men hide their sins, and, even though the issue be successful, enjoy the results while concealing the sins themselves.

A good conscience, however, wishes to come forth and be seen of men; wickedness fears the very shadows.

Hence I hold Epicurus’s saying to be most apt: “That the guilty may haply remain hidden is possible, that he should be sure of remaining hidden is not possible,” or, if you think that the meaning can be made more clear in this way:

“The reason that it is no advantage to wrong-doers to remain hidden is that even though they have the good fortune they have not the assurance of remaining so.”

This is what I mean: crimes can be well guarded; free from anxiety they cannot be.

This view, I maintain, is not at variance with the principles of our school, if it be so explained. And why? Because the first and worst penalty for sin is to have committed sin;

This view, I maintain, is not at variance with the principles of our school, if it be so explained. And why?

Because the first and worst penalty for sin is to have committed sin; and crime, though Fortune deck it out with her favours, though she protect and take it in her charge, can never go unpunished; since the punishment of crime lies in the crime itself.

But none the less do these second penalties press close upon the heels of the first—constant fear, constant terror, and distrust in one’s own security.

XCVIII. ON THE FICKLENESS OF FORTUNE

You need never believe that anyone who depends upon happiness is happy!

It is a fragile support—this delight in adventitious things; the joy which entered from without will some day depart. But that joy which springs wholly from oneself is leal and sound; it increases and attends us to the last;

You need never believe that anyone who depends upon happiness is happy!

It is a fragile support—this delight in adventitious things; the joy which entered from without will some day depart.

But that joy which springs wholly from oneself is leal and sound; it increases and attends us to the last; while all other things which provoke the admiration of the crowd are but temporary Goods. You may reply: “What do you mean?

it is simply the raw material of Goods and Ills that she gives to us—the sources of things which, in our keeping, will develop into good or ill.

For the soul is more powerful than any sort of Fortune; by its own agency it guides its affairs in either direction, and of its own power it can produce a happy life, or a wretched one.

A bad man makes everything bad—even things which had come with the appearance of what is best; but the upright and honest man corrects the wrongs of Fortune, and softens hardship and bitterness because he knows how to endure them;

For such a soul will never be at rest; in waiting for the future it will lose the present blessings which it might enjoy.

And there is no difference between grief for something lost and the fear of losing it.

But I do not for this reason advise you to be indifferent. Rather do you turn aside from you whatever may cause fear. Be sure to foresee whatever can be foreseen by planning.

He who can bear Fortune, can also beware of Fortune. At any rate, there is no dashing of billows when the sea is calm. And there is nothing more wretched or foolish than premature fear.

What madness it is to anticipate one’s troubles!

In fine, to express my thoughts in brief compass and portray to you those busybodies and self-tormentors—they are as uncontrolled in the midst of their troubles as they are before them. He suffers more than is necessary, who suffers before it is necessary;

What madness it is to anticipate one’s troubles! In fine, to express my thoughts in brief compass and portray to you those busybodies and self-tormentors—they are as uncontrolled in the midst of their troubles as they are before them.

He suffers more than is necessary, who suffers before it is necessary; such men do not weigh the amount of their suffering, by reason of the same failing which prevents them from being ready for it; and with the same lack of restraint they fondly imagine that their luck will last for ever, and fondly imagine that their gains are bound to increase as well as merely continue.

They forget this spring-board on which mortal things are tossed, and they guarantee for themselves exclusively a steady continuance of the gifts of chance.

What resource do we find, then, in the face of these losses? Simply this—to keep in memory the things we have lost, and not to suffer the enjoyment which we have derived from them to pass away along with them.

To have may be taken from us, to have had, never.

A man is thankless in the highest degree if, after losing something, he feels no obligation for having received it.

Let us also, therefore, carry out some courageous act of our own accord; let us be included among the ideal types of history.

Why have we been slack? Why do we lose heart?

That which could be done, can be done, if only we purify our souls and follow Nature; for when one strays away from Nature one is compelled to crave, and fear, and be a slave to the things of chance.

Let us also, therefore, carry out some courageous act of our own accord; let us be included among the ideal types of history. Why have we been slack? Why do we lose heart?

That which could be done, can be done, if only we purify our souls and follow Nature; for when one strays away from Nature one is compelled to crave, and fear, and be a slave to the things of chance.

We may return to the true path; we may be restored to our proper state; let us therefore be so, in order that we may be able to endure pain, in whatever form it attacks our bodies, and say to Fortune:

Do you bury friendship along with a friend? And why lament having lost him, if it be of no avail to have possessed him? Believe me, a great part of those we have loved, though chance has removed their persons, still abides with us.

The past is ours, and there is nothing more secure for us than that which has been.

We are ungrateful for past gains, because we hope for the future, as if the future—if so be that any future is ours—will not be quickly blended with the past.

The period which lies between our first day and our last is shifting and uncertain: if you reckon it by its troubles, it is long even to a lad, if by its speed, it is scanty even to a greybeard.

Everything is slippery, treacherous, and more shifting than any weather.

All things are tossed about and shift into their opposites at the bidding of Fortune; amid such a turmoil of mortal affairs nothing but death is surely in store for anyone.

Nevertheless, who will make such an admission as: ‘A man is not better off who is allowed to return home quickly, whose journey is accomplished before he is wearied out’?

Life is neither a Good nor an Evil; it is simply the place where good and evil exist.

Hence this little boy has lost nothing except a hazard where loss was more assured than gain. He might have turned out temperate and prudent; he might, with your fostering care, have been moulded to a better standard;

let us weep according as emotion floods our eyes, but not as much as mere imitation shall demand. Let us, indeed, add nothing to natural grief, nor augment it by following the example of others.

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself: how few men are sad in their own company!

They lament the louder for being heard; persons who are reserved and silent when alone are stirred to new paroxysms of tears when they behold others near them!

… have seen men worthy of reverence, during the burial of those near and dear, with countenances upon which love was written clear even after the whole apparatus of mourning was removed, and who showed no other conduct than that which was allowed to genuine emotion.

There is a comeliness even in grief.

This should be cultivated by the wise man; even in tears, just as in other matters also, there is a certain sufficiency; it is with the unwise that sorrows, like joys, gush over.

Besides, had he been speaking them in his own person, you would not have had time to consider the details—the whole work would have so swept you along.

For as a rule that which pleases by its swiftness is of less value when taken in hand for reading.

Nevertheless, this very quality, too, of attracting at first sight is a great advantage, no matter whether careful investigation may discover something to criticize. If you ask me, I should say that he who has forced approval is greater than he who has earned it;

If you ask me, I should say that he who has forced approval is greater than he who has earned it; and yet I know that the latter is safer, I know that he can give more confident guarantees for the future.

A meticulous manner of writing does not suit the philosopher; if he is timid as to words, when will he ever be brave and steadfast, when will he ever really show his worth?

Fabianus’s style was not careless, it was assured. That is why you will find nothing shoddy in his work: his words are well chosen and yet not hunted for; they are not unnaturally inserted and inverted, according to the present-day fashion;

CI. ON THE FUTILITY OF PLANNING AHEAD

Every day and every hour reveal to us what a nothing we are, and remind us with some fresh evidence that we have forgotten our weakness; then, as we plan for eternity, they compel us to look over our shoulders at Death.

Do you ask me what this preamble means? It refers to Cornelius Senecio, a distinguished and capable Roman knight, whom you knew: from humble beginnings he had advanced himself to fortune, and the rest of the path already lay downhill before him.

“I will buy and build, loan and call in money, win titles of honour, and then, old and full of years, I will surrender myself to a life of ease.” Believe me when I say that everything is doubtful, even for those who are prosperous.

No one has any right to draw for himself upon the future.

The very thing that we grasp slips through our hands, and chance cuts into the actual hour which we are crowding so full. Time does indeed roll along by fixed law, but as in darkness;

but none of us knows how near he is to this limit. Therefore, let us so order our minds as if we had come to the very end.

Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s account every day.

The greatest flaw in life is that it is always imperfect, and that a certain part of it is postponed. One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time.

but none of us knows how near he is to this limit. Therefore, let us so order our minds as if we had come to the very end. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s account every day.

The greatest flaw in life is that it is always imperfect, and that a certain part of it is postponed.

One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time. And yet, from this want arise fear and a craving for the future which eats away the mind.

Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s account every day. The greatest flaw in life is that it is always imperfect, and that a certain part of it is postponed.

One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time.

And yet, from this want arise fear and a craving for the future which eats away the mind. There is nothing more wretched than worry over the outcome of future events;

For what disturbance can result from the changes and the instability of Chance, if you are sure in the face of that which is unsure?

Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

He who has thus prepared himself, he whose daily life has been a rounded whole, is easy in his mind;

We must get rid of this craving for life, and learn that it makes no difference when your suffering comes, because at some time you are bound to suffer.

The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live.

And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long. Farewell.

Again, when an equally venerable bard says: “Praise nurtureth the arts,” he does not mean the giving of praise, for that spoils the arts. Nothing has corrupted oratory and all other studies that depend on hearing so much as popular approval.

Reputation necessarily demands words, but renown can be content with men’s judgments, and suffice without the spoken word.

It is satisfied not only amid silent approval, but even in the face of open protest. There is, in my opinion, this difference between renown and glory—the latter depends upon the judgments of the many; but renown on the judgments of good men.

A different beginning, a different condition, await us. We cannot yet, except at rare intervals, endure the light of heaven; therefore, look forward without fearing to that appointed hour,—the last hour of the body but not of the soul.

Survey everything that lies about you, as if it were luggage in a guest-chamber: you must travel on.

Nature strips you as bare at your departure as at your entrance. You may take away no more than you brought in; what is more, you must throw away the major portion of that which you brought with you into life:

therefore, look forward without fearing to that appointed hour,—the last hour of the body but not of the soul. Survey everything that lies about you, as if it were luggage in a guest-chamber: you must travel on.

Nature strips you as bare at your departure as at your entrance.

You may take away no more than you brought in; what is more, you must throw away the major portion of that which you brought with you into life:

For such argumentation is nothing else than the sport of men who are skilfully juggling with each other. Tell me rather how closely in accord with nature it is to let one’s mind reach out into the boundless universe!

The human soul is a great and noble thing; it permits of no limits except those which can be shared even by the gods.

First of all, it does not consent to a lowly birthplace, like Ephesus or Alexandria, or any land that is even more thickly populated than these, and more richly spread with dwellings.

you will be stripped of the flesh, and lose the blood which is suffused and circulated through your body; you will be stripped of bones and sinews, the framework of these transitory and feeble parts.

That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.

Lay aside your burden—why delay?—just as if you had not previously left the body which was your hiding-place! You cling to your burden, you struggle; at your birth also great effort was necessary on your mother’s part to set you free. You weep and wail;

Equip yourself against that; watch that with an attentive eye. There is no evil more frequent, no evil more persistent, no evil more insinuating. Even the storm, before it gathers, gives a warning; houses crack before they crash; and smoke is the forerunner of fire.

But damage from man is instantaneous, and the nearer it comes the more carefully it is concealed.

You are wrong to trust the countenances of those you meet. They have the aspect of men, but the souls of brutes; the difference is that only beasts damage you at the first encounter; those whom they have passed by they do not pursue.

those whom they have passed by they do not pursue. For nothing ever goads them to do harm except when need compels them: it is hunger or fear that forces them into a fight.

But man delights to ruin man.

You must, however, reflect thus what danger you run at the hands of man, in order that you may deduce what is the duty of man. Try, in your dealings with others, to harm not, in order that you be not harmed.

Let her strip off your faults, rather than assist you to decry the faults of others. Let her not hold aloof from the customs of mankind, nor make it her business to condemn whatever she herself does not do.

A man may be wise without parade and without arousing enmity.

Farewell.

People collide only when they are travelling the same path. But this very philosophy must never be vaunted by you; for philosophy when employed with insolence and arrogance has been perilous to many.

Let her strip off your faults, rather than assist you to decry the faults of others.

Let her not hold aloof from the customs of mankind, nor make it her business to condemn whatever she herself does not do. A man may be wise without parade and without arousing enmity. Farewell.

For it comes into my mind that in this old man there is a youth also, and youth needs tenderness. Therefore, since I cannot prevail upon her to love me any more heroically, she prevails upon me to cherish myself more carefully.

For one must indulge genuine emotions; sometimes, even in spite of weighty reasons, the breath of life must be called back and kept at our very lips even at the price of great suffering, for the sake of those whom we hold dear; because the good man should not live as long as it pleases him, but as long as he ought.

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.

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!”

O what a blessing it would be for some men to wander away from themselves!

As it is, they cause themselves vexation, worry, demoralization, and fear! 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.

O what a blessing it would be for some men to wander away from themselves! As it is, they cause themselves vexation, worry, demoralization, and fear! 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.

You may deem official position a good; you will be vexed at another’s appointment or re-appointment to the consulship; you will be jealous whenever you see a name several times in the state records.

Your ambition will be so frenzied that you will regard yourself last in the race if there is anyone in front of you.

Or you may rate death as the worst of evils, although there is really no evil therein except that which precedes death’s coming—fear.

No, nor will you yourself remain the same; you change with every day and every hour. But in other men you more readily see what time plunders; in your own case the change is hidden, because it will not take place visibly.

Others are snatched from sight; we ourselves are being stealthily filched away from ourselves.

You will not think about any of these problems, nor will you apply remedies to these wounds. You will of your own volition be sowing a crop of trouble by alternate hoping and despairing. If you are wise, mingle these two elements:

Would that they were indeed following you! In that case, they would be farther away; as it is, you are carrying and not leading them. Hence they press about you on all sides, continually chafing and annoying you.

It is medicine, not scenery, for which the sick man must go a-searching.

Suppose that someone has broken a leg or dislocated a joint: he does not take carriage or ship for other regions, but he calls in the physician to set the fractured limb, or to move it back to its proper place in the socket.

Such ills, as long as you carry with you their causes, will load you down and worry you to skin and bone in your wanderings over land and sea. Do you wonder that it is of no use to run away from them?

That from which you are running, is within you.

Accordingly, reform your own self, get the burden off your own shoulders, and keep within safe limits the cravings which ought to be removed. Wipe out from your soul all trace of sin.

they will bid you work hard over something more than neat turns of language and phrases mouthed forth for the entertainment of listeners; they will bid you be stout of heart and rise superior to threats.

The only harbour safe from the seething storms of this life is scorn of the future, a firm stand, a readiness to receive Fortune’s missiles full in the breast, neither skulking nor turning the back.

Nature has brought us forth brave of spirit, and, as she has implanted in certain animals a spirit of ferocity, in others craft, in others terror, so she has gifted us with an aspiring and lofty spirit, which prompts us to seek a life of …

But how much more highly do I think of these men! They can do these things, but decline to do them. To whom that ever tried have these tasks proved false? To what man did they not seem easier in the doing?

Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty; the difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

If, however, you desire a pattern, take Socrates, a long-suffering old man, who was sea-tossed amid every hardship and yet was unconquered both by poverty (which his troubles at home made more burdensome) and by toil, including the drudgery of military service.

Second, we must spurn wealth: wealth is the diploma of slavery. Abandon gold and silver, and whatever else is a burden upon our richly-furnished homes; liberty cannot be gained for nothing.

If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.

Farewell.

and your reconciliation should be easy and sure. Moreover, it is as troublesome to be feared at home as abroad; it is as bad to be feared by a slave as by a gentleman. For every one has strength enough to do you some harm.

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

Contempt remains to be discussed. He who has made this quality an adjunct of his own personality, who is despised because he wishes to be despised and not because he must be despised, has the measure of contempt under his control.

Nothing, however, will help you so much as keeping still—talking very little with others, and as much as may be with yourself.

For there is a sort of charm about conversation, something very subtle and coaxing, which, like intoxication or love, draws secrets from us.

No man will keep to himself what he hears. No one will tell another only as much as he has heard. And he who tells tales will tell names, too. Everyone has someone to whom he entrusts exactly what has been entrusted to him.

their crimes are balanced by their fears, and they are never at ease. For they tremble after the deed, and they are embarrassed; their consciences do not allow them to busy themselves with other matters, and continually compel them to give an answer.

Whoever expects punishment, receives it, but whoever deserves it, expects it.

Where there is an evil conscience something may bring safety, but nothing can bring ease; for a man imagines that, even if he is not under arrest, he may soon be arrested. His sleep is troubled;

For they tremble after the deed, and they are embarrassed; their consciences do not allow them to busy themselves with other matters, and continually compel them to give an answer. Whoever expects punishment, receives it, but whoever deserves it, expects it.

Where there is an evil conscience something may bring safety, but nothing can bring ease; for a man imagines that, even if he is not under arrest, he may soon be arrested.

His sleep is troubled; when he speaks of another man’s crime, he reflects upon his own, which seems to him not sufficiently blotted out, not sufficiently hidden from view. A wrongdoer sometimes has the luck to escape notice but never the assurance thereof. Farewell.

His sleep is troubled; when he speaks of another man’s crime, he reflects upon his own, which seems to him not sufficiently blotted out, not sufficiently hidden from view.

A wrongdoer sometimes has the luck to escape notice but never the assurance thereof.

Farewell.

My tardiness in answering your letter was not due to press of business. Do not listen to that sort of excuse; I am at liberty, and so is anyone else who wishes to be at liberty.

No man is at the mercy of affairs.

He gets entangled in them of his own accord, and then flatters himself that being busy is a proof of happiness. Very well; you no doubt want to know why I did not answer the letter sooner?

My tardiness in answering your letter was not due to press of business. Do not listen to that sort of excuse; I am at liberty, and so is anyone else who wishes to be at liberty. No man is at the mercy of affairs.

He gets entangled in them of his own accord, and then flatters himself that being busy is a proof of happiness.

Very well; you no doubt want to know why I did not answer the letter sooner? The matter about which you consulted me was being gathered into the fabric of my volume.

Now that I have humoured your wishes, I shall anticipate your remark, when you say: “What a game of pawns!”

We dull our fine edge by such superfluous pursuits; these things make men clever, but not good.

Wisdom is a plainer thing than that; nay, it is clearly better to use literature for the improvement of the mind, instead of wasting philosophy itself as we waste other efforts on superfluous things.

None of these things is unusual or unexpected. It is as nonsensical to be put out by such events as to complain of being spattered in the street or at getting befouled in the mud.

The programme of life is the same as that of a bathing establishment, a crowd, or a journey: sometimes things will be thrown at you, and sometimes they will strike you by accident.

Life is not a dainty business. You have started on a long journey; you are bound to slip, collide, fall, become weary, and cry out: “O for Death!”—or in other words, tell lies.

The programme of life is the same as that of a bathing establishment, a crowd, or a journey: sometimes things will be thrown at you, and sometimes they will strike you by accident.

Life is not a dainty business.

You have started on a long journey; you are bound to slip, collide, fall, become weary, and cry out: “O for Death!”—or in other words, tell lies.

With such messmates must you spend your days. Avoid them you cannot, but despise them you can. And you will despise them, if you often take thought and anticipate the future.

Everyone approaches courageously a danger which he has prepared himself to meet long before, and withstands even hardships if he has previously practised how to meet them.

But, contrariwise, the unprepared are panic-stricken even at the most trifling things. We must see to it that nothing shall come upon us unforeseen.

And Nature moderates this world-kingdom which you see, by her changing seasons: clear weather follows cloudy; after a calm, comes the storm; the winds blow by turns; day succeeds night; some of the heavenly bodies rise, and some set.

Eternity consists of opposites.

It is to this law that our souls must adjust themselves, this they should follow, this they should obey. Whatever happens, assume that it was bound to happen, and do not be willing to rail at Nature.

nor should they be greedily attacked in the mass; one will arrive at a knowledge of the whole by studying the parts. The burden should be suited to your strength, nor should you tackle more than you can adequately handle.

Absorb not all that you wish, but all that you can hold.

Only be of a sound mind, and then you will be able to hold all that you wish. For the more the mind receives, the more does it expand.

Absorb not all that you wish, but all that you can hold. Only be of a sound mind, and then you will be able to hold all that you wish.

For the more the mind receives, the more does it expand.

This was the advice, I remember, which Attalus gave me in the days when I practically laid siege to his class-room, the first to arrive and the last to leave. Even as he paced up and down, I would challenge him to various discussions;

for he not only kept himself accessible to his pupils, but met them half-way. His words were: “The same purpose should possess both master and scholar—an ambition in the one case to promote, and in the other to progress.”

He who studies with a philosopher should take away with him some one good thing every day: he should daily return home a sounder man, or in the way to become sounder.

And he will thus return; for it is one of the functions of philosophy to help not only those who study her, but those also who associate with her.

hence, when the stimulus is added, the good spirit is stirred as if it were freed from bonds. Have you not noticed how the theatre re-echoes whenever any words are spoken whose truth we appreciate generally and confirm unanimously?

The poor lack much; the greedy man lacks all.

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

but our minds are struck more effectively when a verse like this is repeated:

He needs but little who desires but little.

He hath his wish, whose wish includeth naught Save that which is enough.

He needs but little who desires but little.

He hath his wish, whose wish includeth naught Save that which is enough.

When we hear such words as these, we are led towards a confession of the truth.

There are indeed mistakes made, through the fault of our advisers, who teach us how to debate and not how to live; there are also mistakes made by the pupils, who come to their teachers to develop, not their souls, but their wits.

Thus the study of wisdom has become the study of words.

Now it makes a great deal of difference what you have in mind when you approach a given subject. If a man is to be a scholar, and is examining the works of Vergil, he does not interpret the noble passage

in the following sense: “We must wake up; unless we hasten, we shall be left behind. Time rolls swiftly ahead, and rolls us with it.

We are hurried along ignorant of our destiny; we arrange all our plans for the future, and on the edge of a precipice are at our ease.

” Instead of this, he brings to our attention how often Vergil, in speaking of the rapidity of time, uses the word “flies” (fugit).

Let us therefore strive with all courage, omitting attractions by the way; let us struggle with a single purpose, lest, when we are left behind, we comprehend too late the speed of quick-flying time, whose course we cannot stay.

Let every day, as soon as it comes, be welcome as being the choicest, and let it be made our own possession.

We must catch that which flees.

he must wrestle, as it were, with the sea; he must furl his sails when the storm rages; what good is a frightened and vomiting steersman to me? And how much greater, think you, is the storm of life than that which tosses any ship!

One must steer, not talk.

All the words that these men utter and juggle before a listening crowd, belong to others. They have been spoken by Plato, spoken by Zeno, spoken by Chrysippus or by Posidonius, and by a whole host of Stoics as numerous as excellent.

Moreover, they will communicate to each other a knowledge of certain facts; for the wise man is not all-knowing. And even if he were all-knowing, someone might be able to devise and point out short cuts, by which the whole matter is more readily disseminated.

The wise will help the wise, not, mark you, because of his own strength merely, but because of the strength of the man whom he assists.

The latter, it is true, can by himself develop his own parts; nevertheless, even one who is running well is helped by one who cheers him on.

The wise will help the wise, not, mark you, because of his own strength merely, but because of the strength of the man whom he assists.

The latter, it is true, can by himself develop his own parts; nevertheless, even one who is running well is helped by one who cheers him on.

"But the wise man does not really help the wise; he helps himself. Let me tell you this: strip the one of his special powers, and the other will accomplish nothing.”

What, then? Are we not more foolish than any child, we who “in the light of day feel fear”?

But you were wrong, Lucretius; we are not afraid in the daylight; we have turned everything into a state of darkness.

We see neither what injures nor what profits us; all our lives through we blunder along, neither stopping nor treading more carefully on this account. But you see what madness it is to rush ahead in the dark.

Accordingly, I say to myself, whenever a show of that sort dazzles my eyes, whenever I see a splendid palace with a well-groomed corps of attendants and beautiful bearers carrying a litter: Why wonder? Why gape in astonishment?

It is all show; such things are displayed, not possessed; while they please they pass away.

Turn thyself rather to the true riches. Learn to be content with little, and cry out with courage and with greatness of soul: ‘We have water, we have porridge; let us compete in happiness with Jupiter himself.’

for he really thinks that he desires it. Luxury has merely upset his stomach; he will soon become reconciled to it again. “But he says that he is put out with his former way of living.” Very likely. Who is not?

Men love and hate their vices at the same time.

It will be the proper season to pass judgment on him when he has given us a guarantee that he really hates luxury; as it is now, luxury and he are merely not on speaking terms. Farewell.

Teach me, not whether Bravery be a living thing, but prove that no living thing is happy without bravery, that is, unless it has grown strong to oppose hazards and has overcome all the strokes of chance by rehearsing and anticipating their attack.

And what is Bravery? It is the impregnable fortress for our mortal weakness; when a man has surrounded himself therewith, he can hold out free from anxiety during life’s siege; for he is using his own strength and his own weapons.

At this point I would quote you a saying of our philosopher Posidonius: “There are never any occasions when you need think yourself safe because you wield the weapons of Fortune; fight with your own! Fortune does not furnish arms against herself;

Little do they know of that kingdom which is on an equality with the heavens in greatness!

Self-Command is the greatest command of all.

Let her teach me what a hallowed thing is the Justice which ever regards another’s good and seeks nothing for itself except its own employment. It should have nothing to do with ambition and reputation; it should satisfy itself.

a just deed in itself offers a still greater return. Fasten deep in your mind that which I remarked a short space above: that it makes no difference how many persons are acquainted with your uprightness.

Those who wish their virtue to be advertised are not striving for virtue but for renown.

Are you not willing to be just without being renowned? Nay, indeed you must often be just and be at the same time disgraced. And then, if you are wise, let ill repute, well won, be a delight. Farewell.

And when the soul has yielded to pleasure, its functions and actions grow weak, and any undertaking comes from a nerveless and unsteady source. To persist in my use of this simile—our soul is at one time a king, at another a tyrant.

The king, in that he respects things honourable, watches over the welfare of the body which is entrusted to his charge, and gives that body no base, no ignoble commands.

But an uncontrolled, passionate, and effeminate soul changes kingship into that most dread and detestable quality—tyranny;

Look, and mark in how many regions men plough the earth, and how many thousands of farmers are tilling and digging; is it, think you, for a single belly that crops are planted in Sicily and Africa?

We should be sensible, and our wants more reasonable, if each of us were to take stock of himself, and to measure his bodily needs also, and understand how little he can consume, and for how short a time!

But nothing will give you so much help toward moderation as the frequent thought that life is short and uncertain here below; whatever you are doing, have regard to death. Farewell.

You are familiar with the young dandies, natty as to their beards and locks, fresh from the bandbox; you can never expect from them any strength or any soundness.

Style is the garb of thought: if it be trimmed, or dyed, or treated, it shows that there are defects and a certain amount of flaws in the mind.

Elaborate elegance is not a manly garb.

We mortals have been endowed with sufficient strength by nature, if only we use this strength, if only we concentrate our powers and rouse them all to help us or at least not to hinder us.

The reason is unwillingness, the excuse, inability.

Farewell.

… and this is the ever fresh material which we may dig out as we scan the restless multitudes of men, who, in order to attain something ruinous, struggle on through evil to evil, and seek that which they must presently shun or even find surfeiting.

For who was ever satisfied, after attainment, with that which loomed up large as he prayed for it?

Happiness is not, as men think, a greedy thing; it is a lowly thing; for that reason it never gluts a man’s desire. You deem lofty the objects you seek, because you are on a low level and hence far away from them;

For who was ever satisfied, after attainment, with that which loomed up large as he prayed for it?

Happiness is not, as men think, a greedy thing; it is a lowly thing; for that reason it never gluts a man’s desire.

You deem lofty the objects you seek, because you are on a low level and hence far away from them; but they are mean in the sight of him who has reached them.

deceived by common report, they make for these ends as if they were good, and then, after having won their wish, and suffered much, they find them evil, or empty, or less important than they had expected.

Most men admire that which deceives them at a distance, and by the crowd good things are supposed to be big things.

Now, lest this happen also in our own case, let us ask what is the Good. It has been explained in various ways; different men have described it in different ways. Some define it in this way.

I shall furnish you with a ready creditor, Cato’s famous one, who says: “Borrow from yourself!” No matter how small it is, it will be enough if we can only make up the deficit from our own resources.

For, my dear Lucilius, it does not matter whether you crave nothing, or whether you possess something.

The important principle in either case is the same—freedom from worry.

“It is, however,” you reply, “thanks to himself and his endurance, and not thanks to his fortune.” Do you, then, hold that such a man is not rich, just because his wealth can never fail? Would you rather have much, or enough?

He who has much desires more—a proof that he has not yet acquired enough; but he who has enough has attained that which never fell to the rich man’s lot—a stopping-point.

Do you think that this condition to which I refer is not riches, just because no man has ever been proscribed as a result of possessing them? Or because sons and wives have never thrust poison down one’s throat for that reason?

“But one possesses too little, if one is merely free from cold and hunger and thirst.” Jupiter himself however, is no better off.

Enough is never too little, and not-enough is never too much.

Alexander was poor even after his conquest of Darius and the Indies. Am I wrong?

He who was but lately the disputed lord of an unknown corner of the world, is dejected when, after reaching the limits of the globe, he must march back through a world which he has made his own.

Money never made a man rich; on the contrary, it always smites men with a greater craving for itself.

Do you ask the reason for this? He who possesses more begins to be able to possess still more.

Only, do not mix any vices with these demands. Why need you ask how your food should be served, on what sort of table, with what sort of silver, with what well-matched and smooth-faced young servants?

Nature demands nothing except mere food.

Dost seek, when thirst inflames thy throat, a cup of gold? Dost scorn all else but peacock’s flesh or turbot When the hunger comes upon thee?

Dost seek, when thirst inflames thy throat, a cup of gold? Dost scorn all else but peacock’s flesh or turbot When the hunger comes upon thee?

Hunger is not ambitious; it is quite satisfied to come to an end; nor does it care very much what food brings it to an end.

Those things are but the instruments of a luxury which is not “happiness”;

we say: “That is not suitable”; “this is not well recommended”; “that hurts my eyesight.” The Builder of the universe, who laid down for us the laws of life, provided that we should exist in well-being, but not in luxury.

Everything conducive to our well-being is prepared and ready to our hands; but what luxury requires can never be got together except with wretchedness and anxiety.

Let us therefore use this boon of Nature by reckoning it among the things of high importance; let us reflect that Nature’s best title to our gratitude is that whatever we want because of sheer necessity we accept without squeamishness. Farewell.

for it consists of our past lives. But we are mistaken in fearing the last day, seeing that each day, as it passes, counts just as much to the credit of death. The failing step does not produce, it merely announces, weariness.

The last hour reaches, but every hour approaches, death.

Death wears us away, but does not whirl us away.

But we are mistaken in fearing the last day, seeing that each day, as it passes, counts just as much to the credit of death. The failing step does not produce, it merely announces, weariness. The last hour reaches, but every hour approaches, death.

Death wears us away, but does not whirl us away.

For this reason the noble soul, knowing its better nature, while taking care to conduct itself honourably and seriously at the post of duty where it is placed, counts none of these extraneous objects as its own, but uses them as if they were a …