The insights of ancient philosophers still hold enduring relevance today. Among these guiding voices stands Seneca, a prominent figure of Stoic philosophy whose "Letters from a Stoic" offers profound insights into navigating life's challenges with resilience, wisdom, and grace. I highly recommend this book, especially if you'd like to adjust your mindset to a more positive and peaceful one.
QUOTES FROM SENECA'S LETTERS FROM A STOIC
"You do not tear from place to place and unsettle yourself with one move after another. Restlessness of that sort is symptomatic of a sick mind. 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."
"To be everywhere is to be nowhere."
" 'A cheerful poverty', he says 'is an honourable state.' But if it is cheerful it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more. What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough."
"For that body is all that is vulnerable about me: within this dwelling so liable to injury there lives a spirit that is free."
“Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.”
“It is not the man who has too little that is poor, but the one who hankers after more.”
“If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.”
“Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.”
"Part of my joy in learning is that it puts me in a position to teach; nothing, however outstanding and however helpful, will ever give me any pleasure if the knowledge is to be for my benefit alone."
"There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with."
“Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do.”
"What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend. That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all."
"What then do you imagine the effect on a person's character is when the assault comes from the world at large? You must inevitably either hate or imitate the world. But the right thing is to shun both courses: you should neither become like the bad because they are many, nor be an enemy of the many because they are unlike you. Retire into yourself as much as you can. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one: men learn as they teach. And there is no reason why any pride in advertising your talents abroad should lure you forward into the public eye inducing you to give readings of your works or deliver lectures."
"Reflect that nothing merits admiration except the spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything."
"The ending inevitably matches the beginning: a person who starts being friends with you because it pays him will similarly cease to be friends because it pays him to do so."
"There can be no doubt that the desire lovers have for each other is not so very different from friendship- you might say it was friendship gone mad. "
"Away with the world's opinion of you- it's always unsettled and divided."
" A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light"
"But something that can never be learnt too thoroughly can never be said too often. With some people you only need to point to a remedy; others need to have it rammed into them."
" All that dashing about turns out to be quite futile. And if you want to know why all this running away cannot help you, the answer is simply this: you are running away in your own company. You have to lay aside the load on your own spirit.. Until you do that, nowhere will satisfy you."
"Where you arrive does not matter so much as what sort of person you are when you arrive there. "
"Play the part first of prosecutor, then of judge and finally of pleader in mitigation. Be harsh with yourself at times."
"Treat your inferiors in the way in which you would like to be treated by your own superiors."
"A man who examines the saddle and bridle and not the animal itself when he is out to buy a horse is a fool; similarly, only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his social position, which after all is only something that we wear like clothing."
"Each man has a character of his own choosing; it is chance or fate that decides his choice of job."
"Have them respect you rather than fear you."
"To be really respected is to be loved; and love and fear do not mix."
"The place one's in, though, doesn't make any contribution to peace of mind: it's the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself. I've seen for myself people sunk in gloom in cheerful and delightful country houses, and people in completely secluded surroundings who looked as if they were run off their feet."
"Life would be restricted indeed if there were any barrier to our imagination."
"He whom we suppose to be dead and gone has merely been sent on ahead."
"At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is a whole."
"You weren't thinking, surely, that you wouldn't yourself one day arrive at a destination towards which you've been from the beginning? Every journey has its end."
"You want to live- but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying-and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?"
"As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. It is not important at what point you stop. Stop wherever you will- only make sure you round it off with a good ending."
"A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is."
"Be your own spectator anyway, your own applauding audience."
"If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person."
“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.”
“You should … live in such a way that there is nothing which you could not as easily tell your enemy as keep to yourself.”
"So long as you carry the sources of your troubles about with you, those troubles will continue to harass and plague you wherever you wander on land or on sea. Does it surprise you that running away doesn't do you any good? The things you're running away from are with you all the time."
"A guilty person sometimes has the luck to escape detection, but never to feel sure of it."
"What we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application- not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech- and learn them so well that words become works."
"People prone to every fault they denounce are walking advertisements of the uselessness of their training."
"It is in no man's power to have whatever he wants; but he has it in his power not to wish for what he hasn't got, and cheerfully make the most of the things that do come his way."
"One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we're seduced by convention."
"One used to think that the type of person who spreads tales was as bad as any: but there are persons who spread vices. And association with them does a lot of damage. For even if its success is not immediate, it leaves a seed in the mind, and even after we've said goodbye to them, the evil follows us, to rear its head at some time or other in the future."
"How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honourable finally become, for you, the same."
"No man's good by accident. Virtue has to be learnt."
SENECA ON FRIENDSHIP
"But if you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship."
"Certainly you should discuss everything with a friend; but before you do so, discuss in your mind the man himself. After friendship is formed you must trust, but before that you must judge."
"Think for a long time whether or not you should admit a given person to your friendship. But when you have decided to do so, welcome him heart and soul, and speak as unreservedly with him as you would with yourself."
"Why should I keep back anything when I'm with a friend? Why shouldn't I imagine I'm alone when I'm in his company?"
"If any matter that affects you is no concern of mine, I am not a friend. Friendship creates a community of interest between us in everything. "
"Trusting everyone is as much a fault as trusting no one (though I should call the first the worthier and the second the safer behaviour).
"You have buried someone you loved. Now look for someone to love. It is better to make good the loss of a friend than to cry over him."
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