Letters From a Stoic - Seneca: Summary of all 124 Letters
One who is assured of blessing is one who sees himself to be a blessing in himself. There is no greater curse than being unpleasant with oneself.
The Gods who give good fortune to bad men are still making sure to be hostile, perhaps in indirect and different ways.
Nobody has dared to see the true light of his actions, looking past it and continuing his feeble existence. Passing fear onto one another, we wonder why falsehood and vanity still appreciate in value.
Like boys who cower frightened in the dark, So grown-ups in the light of day feel fear.
Seneca argues we have turned everything into darkness. All our lives we make mistakes but we don’t take into account what has actually occurred and how we can work to be better men. So we dig for the diamond but don’t realize we have gold right next to us. Therefore see clearly what is necessary opposed to that which is not.
What is necessary will meet you everywhere; what is superfluous has always to be hunted-out – and with great endeavor.
How does it matter what we receive as long as we are able to live, since the items we possess will be gone in due time? Such riches and nice food will still dissolve the same once it enters the body.
Do you ask what is the cure for want? It is to make hunger satisfy hunger; for, all else being equal, what difference is there in the smallness or the largeness of the things that force you to be a slave?
The true philosopher is crafted from his actions, not his tricks. Nobody, according to Seneca, has learned to control his own life without despising it first.
On trying to change people who have daggered down the wrong path, Seneca gives an example with regards to his vineyard. When results do not prune from the plant, we shall cut them off and begin anew, and hope on the next trial that the vine will be nourishing. The sinned person Lucilius refers to in a previous letter is weak, for his vices have taken over. Luxury has upset the stomach. Only reform the man who hates luxury, not the man whom luxury and him are merely ‘taking a break’.
Virtue is nothing else than a soul in a certain condition; therefore it is a living thing.
Virtue is an active practice of which all actions require impulse. And Seneca argues that no thing which does not possess impulse is alive, therefore virtue is alive. The soul is part of the self. Virtue must act in conjunction with man. Self-command shall be the greatest command of all.
Man’s speech is just like his life.