Sublime

Seneca would say that he actually pitied people who have never experienced misfortune. “You have passed through life without an opponent,” he said. “No one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

“Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman…. No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 47.17

No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life!

In Seneca’s essay on tranquility, he uses the Greek word euthymia, which he defines as “believing in yourself and trusting that you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction.” It is this state of mind, he says, that produces tranquility.

Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman, later translated Stoic teaching into Latin and ensured its popularity for centuries to come. The greatest names in Stoicism – Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius – all come from the Roman period, by which point the school had left behind some of its early interest in the intricacies of logic and cosmolog

“We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can’t stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable. —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS

Pas un jour ne me sera enlevé par personne ; que me donnerait-on qui m'indemnisât d'une telle perte ?[398] Mon âme ne se dévouera qu'à elle-même, ne courtisera qu'elle seule, ne fera rien qui ne soit pour elle, rien en vue de l'opinion : chérissons une vie tranquille, étrangère aux soucis politiques et privés.