Letters From a Stoic - Seneca: Summary of all 124 Letters
Take the time you have which has been meddled with, and control it. Make use of it. Whenever time is taken from you, do not let it be in a careless manner.
Furthermore, if you 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.
Show me the man who places such value on his time. The past has already gone, and so much of it. Seneca is not that man. He is the man who has been reduced to slender through exile (at the time of his writing) and eventually self-execution (afraid of Nero’s possible violence against him). Everyone forgives such a man, but nobody comes to their rescue.
A man is not poor if the little that remains for him is enough.
Don’t relentlessly change paths like a confused spirit. A well-ordered man has the ability to remain in one place and enjoy his own company. Limit yourself to a few master workers, and follow their ideas and thoughts, if you would gain good results. Having everything means you truly don’t have anything.
When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
On a day, select information to be digested for death, poverty, and other misfortunes. Select a single thought to thoroughly digest that day. For things we digest, claim a part of that information you receive, and put it under your belonging. The man who craves more becomes poor.
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.
But if you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means.
Is it possible to reach such a level of friendship? How could it possibly be garnered if we do not control the other living soul’s actions? Is it wrong to believe that for a certain price, anyone would betray us?
When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.
How can we trust bypassing judgment? When we understand the man and his actionable state. When we decide on a friend however, put our heart and soul into them. Speak well of them as you would yourself. Some would not trust even themselves. Some trust too many and let their secrets slip. Seneca argues we should not trust those who always lack tranquility and those who are always in tranquility, for Nature birth onto the Earth day and night.
Keep the rational mind for as long as you can. When we improve our minds we find some enjoyment, as we settle the mind to a peaceful state. At some point, wisdom will take you to its shelter of manhood, and you can feel happy when this happens. This boyishness, if it continues to stay with us, spoils our stage of development.
But death must either not come at all, or else must come and pass away.
No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.