Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium
Reviews
love
This man really loves Virgil.
timeless
Took nearly three years to digest and finish this Stoic master writing. Seneca's wisdom is timeless. Likely will take many years to come to revisit and appreciate his philosophy.
I forgot to mark this as read. My favorite letters described Seneca's boating (mis)adventures, and his discussions of Homer and Virgil were also excellent.
I took my time with this one, but I'm glad I did. As a relative newcomer into Stoic philosophy, I think reading this right after Marcus Aurelius' Meditations was perfect. It expounded on some of the main ideas from Marcus but put them in more of a conversational, rounded out manner (this shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering Meditations was essentially a diary). I covered this thing with my highlighter, and can already tell it will be one of those books I'll never end up getting rid of. I've loved these classic philosophy books because they contain so much actionable advice that is still relevant to this time. Letters from a stoic now sits in a permanent spot on my favorites shelf.
"Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company." Seneca was a wealthy old Roman (4 BC - 65 AD) who played the part of philosopher and political advisor. At the age of 64 he was forced to commit suicide for his (likely fabricated) role in a conspiracy. Even in his innocence, he committed the act with a calm and, dare I say, stoic demeanor. He wrote a number of letters, plays, and essays, which were highly revered almost immediately. The early Christian church even considered him to be nearly on the same plane as the saints. And yet today, unfortunately, his works aren't all that well-known outside of academia or the new Stoic movement. Letters is, however, one of the pillars of the Stoic oeuvre for good reason. It's pithy, contemplative, inspiring, motivating, and quite clearly to me, an all-time work of philosophical and wisdom literature. Composed to his friend Lucilius, it's likely that these letters, though indeed sent and received, were actually intended for a broader reading public. The details are a little hazy, which is understandable given that this all happened about 2,000 years ago. Enough background. I read these letters over the course of a few months, taking in a single entry each morning as a form of "devotional" reading. "Each day, too, acquire something which will help you to face poverty, or death, and other ills as well. After running over a lot of different thoughts, pick out one to be digested thoroughly that day." You can see in the quote above that Seneca himself was a fan of this type of reading. Just 5-15 minutes or so each morning, and my mind was well-primed — to face whatever challenge may arise, to do the work necessary, to accept whatever the day would bring. While common with religious texts, devotional reading can also happen with anything that stirs the soul, whether it's philosophy, poetry, essays, personal development, etc. (Now that I'm done with Seneca, I'm moving to reading a few pages of Whitman's collected poems each morning.) One more bit of advice from Seneca that I'm particularly fond of: "You should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a lasting place in your mind."
Highlights
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.
But how foolish men are now! They whisper the basest of prayers to heaven; 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"?
For what purpose, then, do I make a man my friend? In order to have someone for whom I may die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may stake my own life, and pay the pledge, too. The friendship which you portray is a bargain and not a friendship; it regards convenience only, and looks to the results.
"What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself." That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.
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; for memory recalls the tortures of fear, while foresight anticipates them. The present alone can make no man wretched.
Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; 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.
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.
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 to come? 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
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.