Moral Letters to Lucilius
Seneca, 65
A Roman statesman at the end of his life writes to a friend about wanting less, fearing death less, and spending the hours he actually has.
Seneca
-4–65
Seneca was Nero's tutor and speechwriter and one of Rome's richest men; he wrote these letters while withdrawing from the court, not long before Nero ordered him to kill himself.
Feels like morality, curiosity and death.
What if a life were weighed the way gold is weighed?
Pray, let us see to it, my dear Lucilius, that our lives, like jewels of great price, be noteworthy not because of their width but because of their weight. Let us measure them by their performance, not by their duration. Would you know wherein lies the difference between this hardy man who, despising Fortune, has served through every campaign of life and has attained to life’s Supreme Good, and that other person over whose head many years have passed? The former exists even after his death; the latter has died even before he was dead. Books by Seneca
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