Sunday, September 10, 2023

More Seneca

Following up on yesterday's posting, see, below, more great quotes from Seneca, courtesy of mindofastoic.com. (Note: his essential "Letter's From a Stoic" can be downloaded as a PDF for free from Internet Archive. It's pretty high up my list of recommended books.)

You'll notice that the quotes are pretty much my own shtick, only more elegantly and tersely stated. I haven't read any of this since college, and had forgotten much of it. As I browse through, I find myself getting excited about how deeply it corroborates my own understanding - having goofily forgotten that it helped form my understanding.

I guess it's the same thing as when, a few years ago, I viewed a short clip of my old trombone teacher playing with the Boston Symphony, and felt gratified at how he was applying exactly my own approach...when it was, of course, exactly the other way around. (Rewatching three years later, I think I'd have played it a bit less sweetly and considerably more seductively. Ideally, Bolero should get under the listener's skin; a reaction I was working on inducing in my prime (here's an example from 1992.) Anyhoo, take it away, Seneca:

- We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

- While we wait for life, life passes.

- Cease to hope and you will cease to fear.

- Wealth is the slave of a wise man and the master of a fool.

- While we are postponing, life speeds by.

- Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms, you will be able to use them better when you are older.

- He who is brave is free.

- It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

- Difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

- Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.

- For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.

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