Letters from a Stoic (65 AD) | Lucius Annaeus Seneca

One of the more well-known Stoics today is Seneca. He lived before Marcus Aurelius by roughly around One Hundred to Two Hundred years. Similar to Marcus Aurelius' work, the Meditations, Seneca also wrote various letters, the difference being to whom the letters are addressed.

There's something personal about ancient texts in the form of letters. It provides a picture of its current day's social atmosphere and how the culture was like. Seneca and other people that have written them probably had no inkling that it would one day guide and be read by the next generation's leaders and readers, two thousand years later.

This particular book, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (in latin) also known as the Moral Epistles was written by Seneca around 65 AD. It is a compilation of letters addressed to a Lucilius, though it is not directly expressed if he is a student or a colleague or a fictional character. Nevertheless, Seneca doles out his observations and critiques of Rome, including advice on different topics. Here are a few.

Letter II

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

[...]

Each day acquire something that will help you to face poverty, or death and other ills as well. [...] It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.

[...]

You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential and second, having what is enough.

Letter VI

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with.

Letter IX

If you wish to be loved, love.

(In this letter he goes on to talk about friends and fair-weather friends; to not be a friend who remain friends of yours only when they are useful to you.) 

Letter XV

The life of folly is empty of gratitude, full of anxiety; it is focused wholly on the future;  

[...] 

Away with pomp and show. As for the uncertain lot that the future has in store for me, Why should I demand from fortune that she should give me this and that rather than demand from myself that I should not ask for them [...] What is the purpose of my labours going to be?

Letter XVIII 

Set aside now and then a number of days during which you will be content with the plaintest of food, and very little of it, and with that rough coarse clothing, and will ask yourself "is this what one use to dread?"

[...]

For no one is worthy of a God unless he has paid no need to riches. I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to ensure that you possess them without tremors; and this you will only achieve in one way; by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing.

letter XXVI

A person that has learned to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

(speaks close to Memento Mori, or Fight Club's  "You have to know, not fear, that someday you're going to die.")

letter XXVIII

"A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation" - Epicurus

(talking about awareness)

 Letter XXXVIII

The men who pioneered the old routes are leaders, not our masters. Truth lies open to everyone. There has yet to be a monopoly of truth.

(about not idolizing your leaders)

Letter XLVII

(lectures about slaves)

Treat your inferiors in the way in which you would like to be treated by your own superiors.

Letter XLVIII

You should live for the other person if you wish to live for yourself.

[...]

Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness.

Letter LV

Soft living imposes on us the penalty of debility. We cease to be able to do things we've long been grudging about doing.

(I connect this with Nassim Taleb's work on Antifragility. One where he talks about how prosperity is sometimes much harder on us and how if you had no stressors in life you would not evolve)

Letter LXIII

Thinking of departed friends is to me something sweet and mellow. for when I had them with me it was with the feeling that I was going to lose them, and now that I have lost them I keep the feeling that I have them with me still. 

[...]

(talking about grief)

Much as you wish to, you will not be able to keep it up for very long, so give it up as early as possible.

Letter LXV

For that body is all that is vulnerable about me: within this dwelling so liable to injury there lives a spirit that is free. Never shall that flesh compel me to fear. Never shall it drive me to any pretence unworthy of a good man; Never shall I tell a lie out of consideration for this petty body. [...] The soul will assume undivided authority. Refusal to be influenced by one's body assures one's freedom.

Letter LXXVIII

Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just and as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.

Letter XC

The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.

[...]

We were born into a world in which things were ready to our hands; it is we who have made everything difficult to come by through our own disdain for what is easily come by.

(we are spoiled brats)

Letter XCI

This is why we need to envisage every possibility and to strengthen the spirit to deal with the things which may conceivably come about. rehearse them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck. 

[...] 

We are born unequal, we die equal.

Letter CIV

So long, in fact as you remain in ignorance of what to aim and what to avoid, what is essential and what is superfluous, what is upright or honourable conduct and what is not, it wil not be travelling but drifting. all this hurrying from place to place won't bring you any relief, for you're travelling in the company of your own emotions, followed by your troubles all the way.

[...] 

Does it surprise you that running away doesn't do you any good? the things you're running away from are with you all the time.

What you must do is mend your ways and get rid of the burden you're carrying. Keep your cravings within safe limits. Scour every trace of evil from your personality. If you want to enjoy your travel, you must make your travelling companion a healthy one.

Letter CVII

Winter brings in the cold, and we have to shiver;
Summer brings back the heat and we have to swelter.
Bad weather tries the health and we have to be ill.
Somewhere or other we are going to have encounters with wild beasts, and with man, too - more dangerous than all those beasts. Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another.
These are the conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature's.

(reminiscent of Viktor Frankl's Logotheraphy)

Letter CXXIII

We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter. Let us fight the battle the other way around - retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet  the things that actually attack us.

In some other letters Seneca discusses about slavery, death in roman gladiator arenas, including suicide, one point which I do not agree with him. It's interesting to note that he also quotes Epicurus a couple times. He writes that one can also learn something from the enemy school. This school being the Epicureans.