Seneca

 
Seneca

Stoicism is one of my favorite philosophies. What we know of this classic Hellenistic philosophy is based primarily on the texts produced by its three primary sages: Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca.

In this article, we're going to take a quick look at Seneca: a statesman, Stoic philosopher, contemporary of Jesus, and tutor to the Roman Emperor Nero (who must not have liked Seneca's Stoic principles too much because he eventually had him killed...either that or there may have been some political issues going on, eh?).

Hope you enjoy!

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Major Work

Seneca was a statesman and a philosopher and is widely known for his skilled essays and, in fact, is recognized by many as the founder of the Essay. In his book, Letters from a Stoic, Seneca writes on subjects ranging from developing habits to following nature's will and living with equanimity.

Must read: Letters from a Stoic

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Life

Seneca was born in Cordoba, then the most prominent city in Spain, at about the same time as Jesus. In 49 CE, he became the tutor to the boy who would later become the emperor Nero. For eight years, he acted as the unofficial chief minister before Nero compelled him to commit suicide after the discovery of a plot that may have elevated Seneca to the throne as emperor.

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Quick Intro to Stoicism

The modern word "stoic" is derived from the calm demeanor of the stoic philosopher. The philosophy itself, however, was named "stoicism" because its founder, Zeno (344-262 bce), taught in a well-known stoa: a colonnade or porch.

Stoicism is one of three prominent philosophies of the Hellenistic era (the other two: Cynicism and Epicureanism). The philosophy was founded by Zeno about 300 bce. (To put it in perspective, Plato founded the Academy in 385 bce.) Although relatively obscure today, Stoicism was the dominant philosophy of the Western world for several centuries. It lost its prominence when the emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century.

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Some of My Favorite Passages

Almost all of the quotes you've read from Seneca come from his collection of essays in his book Letters from a Stoic. Here are some of my favorites:

“What difference does it make, after all, what your position in life is if you dislike it yourself?”

“A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.”

“You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.”

“How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant are the things that are honorable finally become, for you, the same.”

“Let us fight the battle—retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere.”

“Retire into yourself as much as possible. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one. Men learn as they teach.”

“The wise man…lacked nothing but needed a great number of things, whereas the fool, on the other hand, needs nothing (for he does not know how to use anything) but lacks everything.”

“Away with the world’s opinion of you—it’s always unsettled and divided.”

“How much longer are you going to be a pupil? From now on do some teaching as well.”

“Philosophy is good advice, and no one gives good advice at the top of his lungs.”

“What is required is not a lot words, but effectual ones.”

“How can a thing possibly govern others when it cannot be governed itself?”

“What view is one likely to take of the state of a person’s mind when his speech is wild and incoherent and knows no constraint?”

“You can only acquire it successfully if you cease to feel any sense of shame.”

“You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time.”

“What view is one likely to take of the state of a person’s mind when his speech is wild and incoherent and knows no constraint?”

“I am telling you to be a slow-speaking person.”

“God is near you, is with you, is inside you.”

“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy—that he live in accordance with his own nature.”

“No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own.”

“The worse a person is the less he feels it.”

“Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness.”

“Shall I tell you what philosophy holds out to humanity? Counsel…You are called in to help the unhappy.”

“When some state or other offered Alexander a part of its territory and half of all its property he told them that ‘he hadn’t come to Asia with the intention of accepting whatever they cared to give him, but of letting them keep whatever he chose to leave them.’ Philosophy, likewise, tells all other occupations: ‘It’s not my intention to accept whatever time is leftover from you; you shall have, instead, what I reject.’ Give you whole mind to her.”

“Philosophy’s power to blunt all the blows of circumstance is beyond belief.”

“There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly.”

“The philosopher: he alone knows how to live for himself. He is the one, in fact, who knows the fundamental thing: how to live.”

“When one has lost a friend one’s eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.”

“The place one’s in, though, doesn’t make any contribution to peace of mind: it’s the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself.”

“Every journey has an end.”

“Everything hangs on one’s thinking.”

 

“A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.”

“What’s the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then.”

“Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always to take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.”

“See what daily exercise does for one.”

“Drunkenness is nothing but a self-induced state of insanity.”

“So called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments.”

“For me in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold.”

“Philosophy takes as her aim the state of happiness…she shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men’s minds of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are left no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is bloated.”

“The wise man then followed a simple way of life—which is hardly surprising when you consider how even in this modern age he seeks to be as little encumbered as he possibly can.”

“The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.”

“There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn’t just fall to a person’s lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn’t go to anyone other than oneself to find her.”

“To govern was to serve, not to rule.”

“To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.”

“If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.”

“A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation…you have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it.”

“Be harsh with yourself at times.”

“We should live as if we were in public view, and think, too, as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our hearts—which someone can!”

On Death

“Just where death is expecting you is something we cannot know; so, for your part, expect him everywhere.”

“Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers.”

“Life is never incomplete if it is an honorable one. At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is whole.”

“You want to live—but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying—and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?”

“As it is with a play, so it is with life—what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is.”

“Refuse to let the thought of death bother you: nothing is grim when we have escaped that fear.”

“Death: There’s nothing bad about it at all except the thing that comes before it—the fear of it.”

“Every day, therefore, should be regulated as if it were the one that brings up the rear, the one that rounds out and completes our lives.”

 

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Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed this quick look at one of my favorite teachers.

Here's to our pursuit of right thought!