Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

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

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

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

Contented poverty is an honourable estate.

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.[1] Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Vergil[2] remarks,

Lands and cities are left astern,

your faults will follow you whithersoever you travel. 2. Socrates made the same remark to one who complained; he said: "Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels."

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

emperor, Seneca is so linked with the age in which he lived that in reading his works we read those of a true representative of the most thrilling period of Roman history

I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.

We were entrusted by nature

living simply is voluntary poverty.