Notes from reading Seneca…
Whoever makes up his mind to be happy should conclude that the good consists only in that which is honourable.
“The primary indicator, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company… Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time on in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”
No good thing renders its possessor happy.
And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.
What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.
Avoid whatever pleases the throng: avoid the gifts of Chance! Halt before every good which Chance brings to you, in a spirit of doubt and fear; for it is the dumb animals and fish that are deceived by tempting hopes. Do you call these things the ‘gifts’ of Fortune? They are snares.
What Chance has made yours is not really yours.
Each pleasure reserves to the end the greatest delights which it contains. Life is most delightful when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline.
There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more in imagination that in reality… What I advice you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before you which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.
Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.
You may retort with the question: How am I to know whether my sufferings are real or imaginary? Here is the rule for such matters: we are tormented either by things present, or by things to come, or by both. As to things present, the decision is easy. Suppose that your person enjoys freedom and health, and that you do not suffer from any external injury. As to what may happen in the future, we shall see later on. Today there is nothing wrong with it.
Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe. Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim’s throat. Men have survived their own executioners. Even bad fortune is fickle. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not. So look forward to better things.
The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.
I confess that we all have an inborn affection for our body; I con- fess that we are entrusted with its guardianship. I do not maintain that the body is not to be indulged at all; but I maintain that we must not be slaves to it. He will have many masters who makes his body his master, who is over-fearful in its behalf, who judges everything according to the body.
It is indeed foolish, mydear Lucilius, and very unsuitable for a cultivated man, to work hard over developing the muscles and broadening the shoulders and strengthening the lungs. For although your heavy feeding produce good results and your sinews grow solid, you can never be a match, either in strength or in weight, for a first-class bull. Besides, by overloading the body with food you strangle the soul and render it less active. Accordingly, limit the flesh as much as possible, and allow free play to the spirit.
Now there are short and simple exercises which tire the body rapidly, and so save our time; and time is something of which we ought to keep strict account. These exercises are running, brandishing weights, and jumping—high-jumping or broad- jumping, or the kind which I may call, “the Priest’s dance,”[3] or, in slighting terms, “the clothes-cleaner’s jump.”[4] Select for practice any one of these, and you will find it plain and easy. But whatever you do, come back soon from body to mind. The mind must be exercised both day and night, for it is nourished by moderate labour. and this form of exercise need not be hampered by cold or hot weather, or even by old age. Cultivate that good which improves with the years.