Antonio C. Montecristo

“What use is it to me to be able to divide a piece of land into equal areas if I‟m unable to divide it with a brother? What use is the ability to measure out a portion of an acre with an accuracy extending even to the bits which elude the measuring rod if I‟m upset when some high-handed neighbour encroaches slightly on my property?”
― LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA, Letters from a Stoic

“Coraggio: ti resta un solo nodo, anche se difficile, da sciogliere: "Dai mali non nasce il bene; da molte povertà nasce la ricchezza; dunque la ricchezza non è un bene.”
― Seneca, Lettere a Lucilio: Tutte le Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

“Tu vuoi sapere che cosa penso degli studi liberali: non stimo, non considero un bene studi che sfociano in un guadagno. Sono arti venali, utili se esercitano la mente, ma non la occupano del tutto. Bisogna dedicarvisi finché l'animo non è in grado di trattare una materia più impegnativa; sono il nostro tirocinio, non il nostro lavoro.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“I have been speaking about liberal studies. Yet look at the amount of useless and superfluous matter to be found in the philosophers. Even they have descended to the level of drawing distinctions between the uses of different syllables and discussing the proper meanings of prepositions and conjunctions. They have come to envy the philologist and the mathematician, and they have taken over all the inessential elements in those studies – with the result that they know more about devoting care and attention to their speech than about devoting such attention to their lives. Listen and let me show you the sorry consequences to which subtlety carried too far can lead, and what an enemy it is to truth. Protagoras declares that it is possible to argue either side of any question with equal force, even the question whether or not one can equally argue either side of any question! Nausiphanes declares that of the things which appear to us to exist, none exists any more than it does not exist. Parmenides declares that of all these phenomena none exists except the whole. Zeno of Elea has dismissed all such difficulties by introducing another; he declares that nothing exists. The Pyrrhonean, Megarian, Eretrian and Academic schools pursue more or less similar lines; the last named have introduced a new branch of knowledge, non-knowledge.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic