STOIC PHILOSOPHY

Gleanings from the Writings of Seneca

There is not anything in this world, perhaps, that is more talked of, and less understood, than the business of a happy life.

Wherefore, it highly concerns us to take along with us a skillful guide; for it is not in this, as in other voyages, where the highway brings us to our place of repose; or if a man should happen to be out, where the inhabitants might set him right again: but on the contrary, the beaten road is here the most dangerous, and the people, instead of helping us, misguide us. Let us not therefore follow, like beasts, but rather govern ourselves by reason, [rather] than by example.

...we must leave the crowd if we would be happy: for the question of a happy life is not to be decided by vote:...

...the common people find it easier to believe than to judge, and content themselves with what is usual , never examining whether it be good or not. By the common people I mean the man of title as well as the clouted shoe: for I do not distinguish them by the eye, but by the mind.

The true felicity of life is to be free from perturbations; to understand our duties toward God and man: to enjoy the present without any anxious dependence upon the future. Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so, wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us, and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall right over the very thing we search for without finding it. "Tranquillity is a certain equality of mind, which no condition of fortune can either exalt or depress." Nothing can make it less: for it is the state of human perfection: it raises us as high as we can go; and makes every man his own supporter; whereas he that is borne up by anything else may fall. He that judges a true aright, and perseveres in it, enjoys a perpetual calm: he takes a true prospect of things; he observes an order, measure, a decorum in all his actions; he has a benevolence in his nature; he squares his life according to reason; and draws to himself love and admiration.

It must be a sound mind that makes a happy man; there must be a constancy i all conditions, a care for the things of this world, but without trouble; and such an indifferency for the bounties of fortune, that either with them, or without them, we may live contently. There must be neither lamentation, nor quarreling, nor sloth, nor fear; for it makes a discord in man's life. "He that fears, serves." The joy of a wise man stands firm without interruption; in all places, at all times, and in all conditions, his thoughts are cheerful and quiet. As it never came in to him from without, so it will never leave him; but it is born within him, and inseparable from him.

I do not speak this either as a bar to the fair employment of lawful pleasures, or to the gentle flatteries of reasonable expectations: but, on the contrary, I would have men to be always in good humor, provided that it arises from their own souls, and be cherished in their own breasts. Other delights are trivial; they may smooth the brow, but they do not fill and affect the heart. "True joy is a serene and sober motion;" and they are miserably out that take laughing for rejoicing. The seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a great mind, that has fortune inder his feet. He that can look death in the face, and bid it welcome; open his door to poverty, and bridle his appetites; this is a man whom Providence has established in the possession of inviolable delights. The pleasures of the vulgar are ungrounded, thin, and superficial; but the other are solid and eternal.

Taking for granted that human happiness is founded upon wisdom and virtue, we shall treat of these two points in order as they lie: and, first, of wisdom: not in the latitude of its various operations, but as it has only a regard to good life, and the happiness of mankind.

Wisdom is a right understanding, a faculty of discerning good from evil; what is to be chosen, and what rejected; a judgment grounded upon the value of things, and not the common opinion of them; an equality of force, and a strength of resolution.

It is the habit of a perfect mind, and the perfection of humanity, raised as high as Nature can carry it.

He that is perfectly wise is perfectly happy; nay, the very beginning of wisdom makes life easy to us. Neither is it enough to know this, unless we print it in our minds by daily meditation, and so bring a good will to a good habit. And we must practice what we preach: for philosophy is not a subject for popular ostentation; not does it rest in words, but in things. It is not an entertainment taken up for delight, or to give a taste to our leisure; but it fashions the mind, governs our actions, tells us what we are to do, and what not.

It informs us in all the duties of life, piety to our parents, faith to our friends, charity to the miserable, judgment in counsel; it gives us peace by fearing nothing, and riches by coveting nothing.

There is no condition of life that excludes a wise man from discharging his duty. If his fortune be good, he tempers it; if bad, he masters it; if he has an estate, he will exercise his virtue in plenty; if none, in poverty: if he cannot do it in his country, he will do it in banishment; if he has no command, he will do the office of the common soldier.

...wisdom does not teach our fingers, but our minds: fiddling and dancing, arms and fortifications, were the works of luxury and discord; but wisdom instructs us in the way of nature, and in the arts of unity and concord, not in the way of instruments, but in the government of life; not to make us live only, but to live happily. She teaches us what things are good, what evil, and what only appears so;

... the first principles of things...[is] the order of Providence: she exalts us from things corporeal to things incorporeal, and retrieves the truth of all: she searches nature, gives laws to life; and tells us, "That it is not enough to know God, unless we obey him:" she looks upon all accidents as acts of Providence: sets a true value upon things; delivers us from false opinions, and condemns all pleasures that are attended with repentance. She allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful, that is not master of himself.

It is agreed upon at all hands, "That right reason is the perfection of human nature," and wisdom only the dictate of it.

There can be no happiness without constancy and prudence; for a wise man is to write without a blot; and what he likes once he approves forever; he admits of nothing that is either evil or slippery; but marches without staggering or stumbling, and is never surprised: he lives always true and steady to himself, and whatsoever befalls him, this great artificer of both fortunes turns to advantage, he that demurs and hesitates is not yet composed: but whereso virtue interposes upon the main ...

A wise man, in what condition soever he is, will be still happy; for he subjects all things to himself, because he submits himself to reason, and governs his actions by counsel, not by passion.

He is content with his lot, whatever it be, without wishing what he has not; though of the two, he had rather abound than want.

He is faultless in doubtful cases, in prosperity temperate, and resolute in adversity; still making the best of every condition, and improving all occasions to make them serviceable to his fate.

There are three degrees of proficients in the school of wisdom. The first, are those that come within sight of it, but not up to it; they have learned what they ought to do, but they have not put their knowledge in practice: ...

A second sort, are those that have subjected their appetites for a season, but are yet in fear of falling back. A third sort are those that are clear of many vices, but not of all.

...the blessing of wise men rests in the joy they take in the communication of their virtues.

Virtue is that perfect good, which is the compliment of a happy life; the only immortal things that belongs to mortality: it is the knowledge both of others and itself; it is and invincible greatness of mind not to be elevated or dejected with good or ill fortune. It is sociable and gentle, free, steady, and fearless; content within itself; full of inexhaustible delights; and it is valued for itself. One may be a good physician, a good governor, a good grammarian, without being a good man; so that all things from without are only accessories: for the seat of it is a pure and holy mind.

It is not the matter, but the virtue, that makes the actions good or ill; and he that is led in triumph may be yet greater than his conqueror.

When we come once to value our flesh above our honesty, we are lost... rather than make a forfeiture of my credit, my reason, or my faith, I would run all extremities.

[Virtue] ... consists in the action, and not in the things we do: in the choice itself, and not in the subject-matter of it.

It is by an impression of Nature that all men have a reverence for virtue; they know it, and they have a respect for it, though they do not practice it: nay, for the countenance of their very wickedness, they miscall it virtue.

Nay, so powerful is virtue, and so gracious is Providence, that every man has a light set up within him for a guide; which we do all of us both see and acknowledge, though we do not pursue it.

It turns (like fire) all things into itself; our actions and our friendships are tinctured with it, and whatever it touches becomes amiable.

There are some virtues, I confess, which a good man cannot be without, and yet he had rather have no occasion to employ them. If there were any difference, I should prefer the virtues of patience before those of pleasure; for its is braver to break through difficulties than to temper out delights.

I would bear the same mind whether I be rich or poor, whether I get or lose in the world; what I have, I will not either sordidly spare, or prodigally squander away, and I will not reckon upon benefits well placed as the fairest part of my possession: not valuing then by number or weight, but by the profit and esteem of the receiver; accounting myself never the poorer for that which I give to a worthy person. What I do shall be done for conscience, not ostentation. I will eat and drink, not to gratify my palate, or only to fill and empty, but to satisfy nature: I will prevent an honest request if I can foresee it, and I will grant it without asking: I will look upon the whole world as my country, and upon the gods, both as the witnesses and the judges of my words and deeds. I will live and die with this testimony, that I loved good studies, and a good conscience; that I never invaded another man's liberty, and that I preserved my own. I will govern my life and my thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one, and to read the other; for "what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is the searcher of our hearts) all our privacies are open."

...one part of virtue consists in discipline; the other in exercise; for we must first learn, and then practice.

To think that anything is good that is not honest, is to reproach Providence; for good men suffer many inconveniences; but virtue, like the sun, goes on still with her work, let the air be never so cloudy, and finishes her course, extinguishing likewise all other splendors and oppositions; insomuch that calamity is no more to a virtuous mind, than a shower in to the sea.

...all good men are equal, that is to say, as they are good; but yet one may be young, another old; one may be rich, another poor; one eminent and powerful, another unknown and obscure.

Nothing can be good which gives neither greatness nor security to the mind; but, on the contrary, infects it with insolence, arrogance, and tumor: nor does virtue dwell upon the tip of the tongue, but in the temple of the purified heart. He that depends upon any other good becomes covetous of life, and what belongs to it; which exposes a man to appetites that are vast, unlimited, and intolerable. Virtue is free and indefatigable, and accompanied with concord and gracefulness; whereas pleasure is mean, servile, transitory, tiresome, and sickly, and scarce outlives the tasting of it: it is the good belly, and not of the man, and only the felicity of brutes.

Nay, the mind itself has its variety of perverse pleasures as well as the body: as insolence, self- conceit, pride, garrulity, laziness, and the abusive wit of turning everything into ridicule; whereas virtue weighs all this, and corrects it.

The soul is never in the right place until it be delivered from the cares of human affairs; we must labor and climb the hill if we will arrive at virtue, whose seat is upon the top of it.

...it is ostentation, not virtue, when a man will have his good deeds published; and it is not enough to be just where there is honor to be gotten, but to continue so, in defiance of infamy and danger.

I know it is my duty to be content in all conditions; but yet, if it were at my election, I would choose the fairest.

How can that man resign himself to God, or bear his lot, whatever it be, without murmuring, and cheerfully submit to Providence, that shrinks at every motion of pleasure or pain? It is virtue alone that raises us above griefs, hopes, fears, and chances; and makes us not only patient, but willing, as knowing, that whatever we suffer is according to the decree of Heaven.

A good man is happy within himself, and independent upon fortune: kind to his friend, temperate to his enemy, religiously just, indefatigably laborious; and he discharges all duties with a constancy and congruity of actions.