Letters On Ethics Quotes

“Philosophy is not tricks before an audience, nor is it a thing set up for display. It consists not in words but in actions. One does not take it up just to have an amusing pastime, a remedy for boredom. It molds and shapes the mind, gives order to life and discipline to action, shows what to do and what not to do. It sits at the helm and steers a course for us who are tossed in waves of uncertainty. Without it, there is no life that is not full of care and anxiety. For countless things happen every hour that need to advice philosophy alone can give.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“> [The realization of philosophy’s importance] must be fixed more deeply through daily rehearsal. It is more work to follow through on honorable aims than it is to conceive of them. One must persevere and add strength by constant study, until excellent intentions become excellence of mind.
>”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Seneca - Letters from a Stoic: The Complete Collection of 124 Letters, also known as Moral Letters to Lucilius. Translated by Richard M. Gummere

“…No one can live a truly happy life, or even a bearable life, without philosophy … while it is complete wisdom that renders a life happy, even to begin that study makes life bearable.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Seneca - Letters from a Stoic: The Complete Collection of 124 Letters, also known as Moral Letters to Lucilius. Translated by Richard M. Gummere

“Natural desires are limited; those born of false opinion have no stopping point, for falsehood is inherently unbounded. Those who travel by the road have some destination: wandering is limitless.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“When a person is sick, it makes no difference if you lay him on a wooden bed or a golden one: he’ll take the disease along where you carry him. Even so, it matters not at all whether one sick in mind is placed in wealth or poverty. The trouble is his own, and it follows him.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca