Letters From a Stoic - Seneca: Summary of all 124 Letters
What man will have a good soul if he has not risen above the reach of Fortune? Keep watch of your own suffering so that it does not slip into a deep end.
“The remembrance of lost friends is pleasant in the same way that certain fruits have an agreeably acid taste, or as in extremely old wines it is their very bitterness that pleases us. Indeed, after a certain lapse of time, every thought that gave pain is quenched, and the pleasure comes to us unalloyed.” -Attalus
Let us enjoy the company of your friends, because their time is not guaranteed. We have robbed ourselves of every friend we have failed to make.
Again, he who has been unable to love more than one, has had none too much love even for that one.
Seneca says it is better to replace your friend than to weep for him. Grief ends by the passing of time. But try your best to not grow weary by sorrowing. Don’t be silly and think that no death can precede your own. The man which you have lost has only been sent ahead. Farewell.
There are some philosophers who write and lay down the rules, argue, but do not know what it means to be a good man and instead flail around their confidence for others to suction. They do not infuse spirit because they have no spirit, says Seneca. The cures for the spirit have been passed down from the ancients, yet some of us choose not to accept them at all. We need to learn that now is our time for treatment.
The Stoics believed that the universe is comprised of 2 things: cause and matter. Matter lies sluggish and dormant, but cause creates the mold from the sluggish nature, and provides it with direction. Aristotle believed in 3 different causes, namely the actual matter, the workman, and the form which contains an impression of the worker. They all play a pivotal role in creating the statue, proclaims Aristotle.
However, there are nodes to a 4th cause, purpose. This is defined in the way of what attracted the artist to actually craft a statue. Then, Plato established a new fifth cause, the idea. This is what the artist gazed upon when he decided to carry out his work.
Seneca argues hereafter that time shall be included in these causes, for nothing is possible without time. But what about place too? And motion? Overall, there is a great difference between a cause of a work and a work itself.
God allows us to follow him and be contempt with our place on this planet. To when we die, let us understand the progression of change, the progression of time. What bounds are we yet to cross, who is the wiser to know?
Contribute to yourself so that you build a soul of virtue. Virtue and honor permit no addition. For human virtue, only one rule applies, and that is possessing right reason.
In like manner, the other virtues are also equal as compared with one another: tranquility, simplicity, generosity, constancy, equanimity, endurance. For underlying them all is a single virtue – that which renders the soul straight and unswerving.
For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honourable ceases to be the only good.
The honorable is free from fear, stress, and anxiety, not lamenting but continuing on.