II. On Discursive Reading
Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master- thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong.
Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well ; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day. This is my own custom ; from the many things which I have read, I claim some one part for myself.
IX. The Wise Man is Self-Sufficient
For Stilbo, after his country was captured and his children and his wife lost, as he emerged from the general desolation alone and yet happy, spoke as follows to Demetrius, called Sacker of Cities because of the destruction he brought upon them, in answer to the question whether he had lost anything : ” I have all my goods with me!” There is a brave and stout-hearted man for you ! The enemy conquered, but Stilbo conquered his conqueror. Aye, he forced Demetrius to wonder whether he himself had conquered after all. ” My goods are all with me ! ” In other words, he deemed nothing that might be taken from him to be a good.
We marvel at certain animals because they can pass through fire and suffer no bodily harm ; but how much more marvellous is a man who has marched forth unhurt and unscathed through fire and sword and devastation! Do you understand now how much easier it is to conquer a whole tribe than to conquer one man ?
XXIV. On Fear
Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom you will then comprehend that they contain ; nothing fearful except the actual fear. What you see happening to boys happens also to ourselves, who are only slightly bigger boys : when those whom they love, with whom they daily associate, with whom they play, appear with masks on, the boys are frightened out of their wits. We should strip the mask, not only from men, but from things, and restore to each object its own aspect.
The very day which we are now spending is shared between ourselves and death. It is not the last drop that empties the water-clock, but all that which previously has flowed out ; similarly, the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death ; it merely of itself completes the death-process.
XXXVIII. On Effective Words
Words should be scattered like seed ; no matter how small the seed may be, if it has once found favourable ground, it unfolds its strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its greatest growth
References:
- Seneca: IV. Epistulae Morales I. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. Internet Archive. Accessed February 17, 2020. https://archive.org/details/adluciliumepistu01sene/mode/2up