Seneca's Redoubt

So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don’t let anything distract you. You’ve wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.

Nothing lasts forever, few things even last for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another; moreover all that begins also ends.

Neither is a horse elated or proud of his manger and trappings and coverings, nor a bird of his little shreds of cloth and of his nest: but both of them are proud of their swiftness. Do you also then not be greatly proud of your food and dress and, in short, of any external things, but be proud of your integrity and good deeds.

To the best of my judgment, when I look at the human character I see no virtue placed there to counter justice. But I see one to counter pleasure: self-control.

Desolation is the condition of someone who is bereft of help. For a person is not desolate merely because he is alone, any more than he is secure from desolation when he is in a crowd.

Show me a man who isn’t a slave; one who is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear. I could show you a man who has been a Consul who is a slave to his ‘little old woman’, a millionaire who is the slave of a little girl in domestic service. And there is no state of slavery more disgraceful than one which is self-imposed.

And how trivial the things we want so passionately are. And how much more philosophical it would be to take what we’re given and show uprightness, self-control, obedience to God, without making a production of it. There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.