Authors
Seneca
4 BC – 65
Seneca was a Roman philosopher, playwright, and statesman who served as tutor and later chief advisor to the young Emperor Nero, guiding Roman policy for years. He wrote thoughtful letters and essays about how to live a calm, meaningful life, and was a leading voice of Stoicism, a philosophy that teaches people to focus on what they can control and accept what they cannot. His writings are still widely read today for their practical wisdom.
Quotes
“For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.”
“All art is but imitation of nature.”
“It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
“Men learn while they teach.”
“It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one.”
“No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.”
“Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself.”
“The way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.”
“He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.”
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
“Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides.”
“It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.”
“Fire tries gold, misfortune tries brave men.”
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
“Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.”
“Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.”
“Friendship produces between us a partnership in all our interests.”
“Now there is great pleasure, not only in maintaining old and established friendships, but also in beginning and acquiring new ones.”
“He who begins to be your friend because it pays will also cease because it pays.”
“Yet nothing delights the mind so much as faithful and pleasant friendship: what a blessing it is when there is one whose breast is ready to receive all your secrets with safety, whose knowledge of your actions you fear less than your own conscience, whose conversation removes your anxieties, whose advice assists your plans, whose cheerfulness dispels your gloom, whose very sight delights you!”
“In this sense the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them.”
“I have hitherto said nothing of your chief source of consolation, your sister, that most faithful heart which shares all your sorrows as fully as your own, and who feels for all of us like a mother.”
“With her you have mingled your tears, on her bosom you have tasted your first repose:”
“Here, my dearest mother, is a source from which you may gain true consolation: join yourself, as far as you are able, to her, bind yourself to her by the closest embraces.”
“Those who are in sorrow are wont to flee from those who are dearest to them, and to seek liberty for the indulgence of their grief: do you let her share your every thought: if you wish to nurse your grief, she will be your companion, if you wish to lay it aside she will bring it to an end.”
“You would indeed have been good to a worse brother, but to him your fraternal love was given all the more freely because in him it found so fitting a field for its exercise.”
“He wishes to be fondly remembered by you, but not to be a source of agony to you.”
“with one whose brotherly love has been so clearly proved, we may be quite sure that nothing could hurt him more than that you should be hurt by his loss,”
“It is your duty to be both their comfort and their consoler; but you will have no power to check their grief if you humour your own.”
“You are mistaken! your brother has not lost the light of day, but has obtained a more enduring light: whither he has gone, we all alike must go: why then do we weep for his fate? He has not left us, but has gone on before us.”
“One who is as just in all things as you are, must find comfort in the thought that no wrong has been done you by the loss of so noble a brother, but that you have received a benefit by having been permitted for so long a time to enjoy his affection.”
“We ought, therefore, to make our mind travel back over past time, to bring back whatever we once took pleasure in, and frequently to ruminate over it in our thoughts: the remembrance of pleasures is truer and more trustworthy than their reality.”
“Regard it, then, among your greatest blessings that you have had an excellent brother: you need not think for how much longer you might have had him, but for how long you did have him.”
“Rejoice, then, that you have had so good a brother, and be grateful for having had the use and enjoyment of him, though it was for a shorter time than you wished. Reflect that what you have had of him was most delightful, that your having lost him is an accident common to mankind.”
“There is nothing more inconsistent than that a man should grieve that so good a brother was not long enough with him, and should not rejoice that he nevertheless has been with him.”
“Turn yourself away from these thoughts which torment you, and look rather at those numerous and powerful sources of consolation which you possess: look at your excellent brothers, look at your wife and your son.”
“The very fact of one’s grief being shared by many persons acts as a consolation, because if it be distributed among such a number the share of it which falls upon you must be small.”
“At the same time, prolong the remembrance of your brother by inserting some memoir of him among your other writings: for that is the only sort of monument that can be erected by man which no storm can injure, no time destroy.”
“Lavish these upon your brother, embalm him in these: you will do better to immortalise him by an everlasting work of genius than to mourn over him with useless grief.”
“Nature demands from us a certain amount of grief, our imagination adds some more to it; but I will never forbid you to mourn at all.”
“Reason will have done enough if she does but cut off from our grief all that is superfluous and useless: as for her not allowing us to grieve at all, that we ought neither to expect nor to wish for.”
“let your tears flow, but let them some day cease to flow: groan as deeply as you will, but let your groans cease some day: regulate your conduct so that both philosophers and brothers may approve of it.”
“Make yourself feel pleasure in often thinking about your brother, talk constantly about him, and keep him ever present in your memory; which you cannot succeed in doing unless you make the remembrance of him pleasant rather than sad: for it is but natural that the mind should shrink from a subject which it cannot contemplate without sadness.”
“Tell other men of all his sayings and doings, and remind your own self of them: think how good he was and how great you hoped he might become:”
“I do not say that he does not feel them, but he conquers them, and on occasion calmly and tranquilly rises superior to their attacks, holding all misfortunes to be trials of his own firmness.”
“He has invested everything in himself, has entrusted nothing to fortune, has his property in safety, and is content with virtue, which does not need casual accessories, and therefore can neither be increased or diminished; for virtue, as having attained to the highest position, has no room for addition to herself, and fortune can take nothing away save what she gave.”
“So in the sacred games many have won the victory by patiently enduring the blows of their adversaries and so wearying them out.”
“The wise man has another help, of the opposite kind to this; you are hard at work, while he has already won the victory.”
“There are a thousand other instances in which application has conquered all obstacles, and proved that nothing which the mind has set itself to endure is difficult.”
“How can we gain more glory than by turning anger into friendship? what more faithful allies has the Roman people than those who have been its most unyielding enemies? where would the empire be to-day, had not a wise foresight united the conquered and the conquerors?”
“We shall succeed in avoiding anger, if from time to time we lay before our minds all the vices connected with anger, and estimate it at its real value: it must be prosecuted before us and convicted: its evils must be thoroughly investigated and exposed.”
“Whenever you would attempt anything, first form an estimate both of your own powers, of the extent of the matter which you are undertaking, and of the means by which you are to accomplish it: for if you have to abandon your work when it is half done, the disappointment will sour your temper.”
“Fight hard with yourself and if you cannot conquer anger, do not let it conquer you: you have begun to get the better of it if it does not show itself, if it is not given vent.”
“We have now succeeded, my Novatus, in properly regulating our own minds: they either do not feel anger or are above it: let us next see how we may soothe the wrath of others, for we do not only wish to be whole, but to heal.”
“He knows that in leisure as well as in action he will accomplish something by which he will be of service to posterity.”
“Yet nothing sets us free from these alternations of hope and fear so well as always fixing some limit to our successes, and not allowing Fortune to choose when to stop our career, but to halt of our own accord long before we apparently need do so.”
“But the harder these things are to bear, the more virtue you must summon to your aid, and the more bravely you must struggle as it were with an enemy whom you know well, and whom you have already often conquered.”
“It is better, therefore, to conquer it than to cheat it; for a grief which has been deceived and driven away either by pleasure or by business rises again, and its period of rest does but give it strength for a more terrible attack; but a grief which has been conquered by reason is appeased for ever.”
“It is your duty to imitate their constancy in enduring and triumphing over suffering, as far as it is permitted to a mere man to follow in the footsteps of the immortals.”
“To do this is to triumph even over one’s own victory, and to declare that one has found nothing among the vanquished which it was worth the victor’s while to take.”
“Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from the clouds, such a number of medicinal springs, do not alter the taste of the sea, indeed, do not so much as soften it, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of a brave man; for the mind of a brave man maintains its balance and throws its own complexion over all that takes place, because it is more powerful than any external circumstances.”
“You should know that good men ought to act in like manner, so as not to fear troubles and difficulties, nor to lament their hard fate, to take in good part whatever befalls them, and force it to become a blessing to them.”
“Unbroken prosperity cannot bear a single blow; but he who has waged an unceasing strife with his misfortunes has gained a thicker skin by his sufferings, yields to no disaster, and even though he fall yet fights on his knee.”
“Do you wonder that God, who so loves the good, who would have them attain the highest goodness and pre-eminence, should appoint fortune to be their adversary?”
“I should not be surprised if the gods sometimes experience a wish to behold great men struggling with some misfortune.”
“For a man cannot know himself without a trial: no one ever learnt what he could do without putting himself to the test; for which reason many have of their own free will exposed themselves to misfortunes which no longer came in their way, and have sought for an opportunity of making their virtue, which otherwise would have been lost in darkness, shine before the world.”
“God, I say, favours those whom He wishes to enjoy the greatest honours, whenever He affords them the means of performing some exploit with spirit and courage, something which is not easily to be accomplished: you can judge of a pilot in a storm, of a soldier in a battle.”
“Do not, I beg you, dread those things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs: misfortune is virtue’s opportunity.”
“Misfortunes press hardest on those who are unacquainted with them: the yoke feels heavy to the tender neck.”
“Is it not better, with virtue by one’s side, to endure continual misfortune, than to burst with an endless surfeit of good things?”
“Thus the bodies of sailors are hardened by endurance of the sea, and the hands of farmers by work; the arms of soldiers are powerful to hurl darts, the legs of runners are active: that part of each man which he exercises is the strongest: so by endurance the mind becomes able to despise the power of misfortunes.”
“No tree which the wind does not often blow against is firm and strong; for it is stiffened by the very act of being shaken, and plants its roots more securely: those which grow in a sheltered valley are brittle: and so it is to the advantage of good men, and causes them to be undismayed, that they should live much amidst alarms, and learn to bear with patience what is not evil save to him who endures it ill.”
“Wherefore, everything must be patiently endured, because events do not fall in our way, as we imagine, but come by a regular law.”
“Virtue is free, inviolable, not to be moved, not to be shaken, and so hardened against misfortunes that she cannot be bent, let alone overcome by them.”
“Think that the wise man belongs to this class, that of men who, by long and faithful practice, have acquired strength to endure and tire out all the violence of their enemies.”
“No man becomes braver through anger, except one who without anger would not have been brave at all: anger does not therefore come to assist courage, but to take its place.”
“What, indeed? since reason is far more powerful by itself even in performing those operations in which the help of anger seems especially needful: for when reason has decided that a particular thing should be done, she perseveres in doing it; not being able to find anything better than herself to exchange with.”
“Anger has no ground to stand upon, and does not rise from a firm and enduring foundation, but is a windy, empty quality, as far removed from true magnanimity as fool-hardiness from courage, boastfulness from confidence, gloom from austerity, cruelty from strictness.”
“We need a long-breathed struggle against permanent and prolific evils; not, indeed, to quell them, but merely to prevent their overpowering us.”
“It is said that Pyrrhus, the most celebrated trainer for gymnastic contests, used habitually to impress upon his pupils not to lose their tempers: for anger spoils their science, and thinks only how it can hurt: so that often reason counsels patience while anger counsels revenge, and we, who might have survived our first misfortunes, are exposed to worse ones.”
“In like manner, dispositions which are naturally bold produce irritability, and, being hot and fiery, have no mean or trivial qualities, but their energy is misdirected, as happens with all those who without training come to the front by their natural advantages alone, whose minds, unless they be brought under control, degenerate from a courageous temper into habits of rashness and reckless daring.”
“Education ought to be carried on with the greatest and most salutary assiduity: for it is easy to mould minds while they are still tender, but it is difficult to uproot vices which have grown up with ourselves.”
“Suppose that it is a disease or a misfortune; it will take less effect upon you if you bear it quietly: or that it is a god; then you waste your time by being angry with him as much as if you prayed him to be angry with some one else.”
“A dispute nourishes itself as it proceeds, and takes hold of those who plunge too deeply into it: it is easier to stand aloof than to extricate oneself from a struggle.”
“It is best to prepare obstacles beforehand for vices which are known, and above all things so to tranquilize our mind that it may bear the most sudden and violent shocks either without feeling anger, or, if anger be provoked by the extent of some unexpected wrong, that it may bury it deep, and not betray its wound.”
“All our senses should be educated into strength: they are naturally able to endure much, provided that the spirit forbears to spoil them.”
“Let us keep our tempers in spite of losses, wrongs, abuse or sarcasm, and let us endure with magnanimity our shortlived troubles: while we are considering what is due to ourselves, as the saying is, and worrying ourselves, death will be upon us.”
“Like him, then, do not give way, but rather plant yourself firmly, and endure whatever burden may fall upon you from above, scared though you may have been at the first roar of the tempest.”
“Let us, then, steer our own course, and no longer allow ourselves to be driven to leeward by the force of our misfortune.”
“When, therefore, misfortune befalls us, we cannot help collapsing all the more completely, because we are struck as it were unawares: a blow which has long been foreseen falls much less heavily upon us.”
“Life is full of misfortunes; our path is beset with them: no one can make a long peace, nay, scarcely an armistice with fortune.”
“A happy life, therefore, is one which is in accordance with its own nature, and cannot be brought about unless in the first place the mind be sound and remain so without interruption, and next, be bold and vigorous, enduring all things with most admirable courage, suited to the times in which it lives, careful of the body and its appurtenances, yet not troublesomely careful.”
“Can we doubt that patience, courage, constancy, and all the other virtues which have to meet strong opposition, and to trample Fortune under their feet, are climbing, struggling, winning their way up a steep ascent?”
“Knowing to what sorrows we were born, there is nothing for which Nature more deserves our thanks than for having invented habit as an alleviation of misfortune, which soon accustoms us to the severest evils.”
“No one could hold out against misfortune if it permanently exercised the same force as at its first onset.”
“Call good sense to your aid against difficulties: it is possible to soften what is harsh, to widen what is too narrow, and to make heavy burdens press less severely upon one who bears them skilfully.”
“If a man takes this into his inmost heart and looks upon all the misfortunes of other men, of which there is always a great plenty, in this spirit, remembering that there is nothing to prevent their coming upon him also, he will arm himself against them long before they attack him.”
“Among such continual topsy-turvy changes, unless you expect that whatever can happen will happen to you, you give adversity power against you, a power which can be destroyed by any one who looks at it beforehand.”
“The mind ought in all cases to be called away from the contemplation of external things to that of itself: let it confide in itself, rejoice in itself, admire its own works; avoid as far as may be those of others, and devote itself to itself; let it not feel losses, and put a good construction even upon misfortunes.”
“Your courage has been sufficiently displayed by many toilsome and wearisome proofs; try how it will deal with leisure: the greater, certainly the better part of your life, has been given to your country; take now some part of your time for yourself as well.”
“Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.”
“You fear everything, like mortals as you are, and yet you desire everything as if you were immortals.”
“but one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps surprise you more, one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to die.”
“Indeed, if the number of every man’s future years could be laid before him, as we can lay that of his past years, how anxious those who found that they had but few years remaining would be to make the most of them? Yet it is easy to arrange the distribution of a quantity, however small, if we know how much there is: what you ought to husband most carefully is that which may run short you know not when.”
“there is no such obstacle to true living as waiting, which loses to-day while it is depending on the morrow.”
“Our swiftness in making use of our time ought therefore to vie with the swiftness of time itself, and we ought to drink of it as we should of a fast-running torrent which will not be always running.”
“Our present consists only of single days, and those, too, taken one hour at a time: but all the days of past times appear before us when bidden, and allow themselves to be examined and lingered over, albeit busy men cannot find time for so doing.”
“Since Nature allows us to commune with every age, why do we not abstract ourselves from our own petty fleeting span of time, and give ourselves up with our whole mind to what is vast, what is eternal, what we share with better men than ourselves?”
“If any time be past, he recals it by his memory; if it be present, he uses it; if it be future, he anticipates it: his life is a long one because he concentrates all times into it.”
“Those men lead the shortest and unhappiest lives who forget the past, neglect the present, and dread the future: when they reach the end of it the poor wretches learn too late that they were busied all the while that they were doing nothing.”
“Make yourself believe the truth of my words — that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach.”
“Lay hold of to-day's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow's.”
“And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.”
“The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.”
“You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.”
“Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.”
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
“Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it.”
“Life is most delightful when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline.”
“Moreover, no one is so old that it would be improper for him to hope for another day of existence.”
“Hence, every day ought to be regulated as if it closed the series, as if it rounded out and completed our existence.”
“That man is happiest, and is secure in his own possession of himself, who can await the morrow without apprehension.”
“When a man has said: "I have lived!", every morning he arises he receives a bonus.”
“It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom; you know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun.”
“This idea, however, clear though it is, must be strengthened and implanted more deeply by daily reflection; it is more important for you to keep the resolutions you have already made than to go on and make noble ones.”
“You must persevere, must develop new strength by continuous study, until that which is only a good inclination becomes a good settled purpose.”
“Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show.”
“Countless things that happen every hour call for advice; and such advice is to be sought in philosophy.”
“Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point.”
“When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless.”
“This, however, my dear Lucilius, I ask and beg of you, on your part, that you let wisdom sink into your soul, and test your progress, not by mere speech or writings, but by stoutness of heart and decrease of desire.”
“This, I say, is the highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom — that deed and word should be in accord, that a man should be equal to himself under all conditions, and always the same.”
“You should lay hold, once for all, upon a single norm to live by, and should regulate your whole life according to this norm.”
“We have reached the heights if we know what it is that we find joy in and if we have not placed our happiness in the control of externals.”
“Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy.”
“There are only a few who control themselves and their affairs by a guiding purpose; the rest do not proceed; they are merely swept along, like objects afloat in a river.”
“Therefore, we should decide what we wish, and abide by the decision.”
“Nevertheless, I offer thanks to myself, with you as witness; for I feel that age has done no damage to my mind, though I feel its effects on my constitution.”
“But is there any better end to it all than to glide off to one's proper haven, when nature slips the cable?”
“Put aside the opinion of the world; it is always wavering and always takes both sides.”
“I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both, and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital.”
“O when shall you see the time when you shall know that time means nothing to you, when you shall be peaceful and calm, careless of the morrow, because you are enjoying your life to the full?”
“For this reason, give over hoping that you can skim, by means of epitomes, the wisdom of distinguished men.”
“However, the truth will never be discovered if we rest contented with discoveries already made.”
“Besides, he who follows another not only discovers nothing but is not even investigating.”
“I shall indeed use the old road, but if I find one that makes a shorter cut and is smoother to travel, I shall open the new road.”
“Infinitely swift is the flight of time, as those see more clearly who are looking backwards.”
“In other years time did not seem to me to go so swiftly; now, it seems fast beyond belief, perhaps, because I feel that the finish-line is moving closer to me, or it may be that I have begun to take heed and reckon up my losses.”
“Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life's length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little.”
“At our birth nature made us teachable, and gave us reason, not perfect, but capable of being perfected.”
“I, at least, am doing this: in my old age I have ceased to desire what I desired when a boy.”
“I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life.”
“Life is well enough furnished, but we are too greedy with regard to its furnishings; something always seems to us lacking, and will always seem lacking.”
“To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds.”
“You should keep learning as long as you are ignorant — even to the end of your life, if there is anything in the proverb.”
“Money will come of its own accord; titles will be given to you; influence and authority will perhaps be thrust upon you; but virtue will not fall upon you by chance.”
“For since reason alone brings man to perfection, reason alone, when perfected, makes man happy.”
“If every good is in the soul, then whatever strengthens, uplifts, and enlarges the soul, is a good; virtue, however, does make the soul stronger, loftier, and larger.”
“We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly; for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul.”
“A life is really long if it is a full life; but fullness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself.”
“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.”
“And yet I would not on that account decline for myself a few additional years; although, if my life's space be shortened, I shall not say that I have lacked aught that is essential to a happy life.”
“For I have not planned to live up to the very last day that my greedy hopes had promised me; nay, I have looked upon every day as if it were my last.”
“Just as one of small stature can be a perfect man, so a life of small compass can be a perfect life.”
“He who has attained wisdom has reached, not the furthermost, but the most important, goal.”
“The greatest flaw in life is that it is always imperfect, and that a certain part of it is postponed.”
“One who daily puts the finishing touches to his life is never in want of time.”
“Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
“But if you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means.”
“Indeed, I would have you discuss everything with a friend; but first of all discuss the man himself.”
“When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.”
“As to yourself, although you should live in such a way that you trust your own self with nothing which you could not entrust even to your enemy, yet, since certain matters occur which convention keeps secret, you should share with a friend at least all your worries and reflections.”
“Some, for example, fearing to be deceived, have taught men to deceive; by their suspicions they have given their friend the right to do wrong.”
“I therefore wish to impart to you this sudden change in myself; I should then begin to place a surer trust in our friendship — the true friendship which hope and fear and self-interest cannot sever, the friendship in which and for the sake of which men meet death.”
“I can show you many who have lacked, not a friend, but a friendship; this, however, cannot possibly happen when souls are drawn together by identical inclinations into an alliance of honourable desires.”
“Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word.”
“Therefore I summon you, not merely that you may derive benefit, but that you may confer benefit; for we can assist each other greatly.”
“There is the same difference between winning a new friend and having already won him, as there is between the farmer who sows and the farmer who reaps.”
“The wise man, I say, self-sufficient though he be, nevertheless desires friends if only for the purpose of practising friendship, in order that his noble qualities may not lie dormant.”
“He who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly.”
“These are the so-called "fair-weather" friendships; one who is chosen for the sake of utility will be satisfactory only so long as he is useful.”
“Hence prosperous men are blockaded by troops of friends; but those who have failed stand amid vast loneliness their friends fleeing from the very crisis which is to test their worth.”
“A man will be attracted by some reward offered in exchange for his friendship, if he be attracted by aught in friendship other than friendship itself.”
“The friendship which you portray is a bargain and not a friendship; it regards convenience only, and looks to the results.”
“As we hate solitude and crave society, as nature draws men to each other, so in this matter also there is an attraction which makes us desirous of friendship.”
“When I urge you so strongly to your studies, it is my own interest which I am consulting; I want your friendship, and it cannot fall to my lot unless you proceed, as you have begun, with the task of developing yourself.”
“A friend loves you, of course; but one who loves you is not in every case your friend.”
“Friendship, accordingly, is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm.”
“We feel a joy over those whom we love, even when separated from them, but such a joy is light and fleeting; the sight of a man, and his presence, and communion with him, afford something of living pleasure; this is true, at any rate, if one not only sees the man one desires, but the sort of man one desires.”
“Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow.”
“Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us.”
“So too it cannot but be that the names of those whom we have loved and lost come back to us with a sort of sting; but there is a pleasure even in this sting.”
“Let us greedily enjoy our friends, because we do not know how long this privilege will be ours.”
“Let us think how often we shall leave them when we go upon distant journeys, and how often we shall fail to see them when we tarry together in the same place; we shall thus understand that we have lost too much of their time while they were alive.”
“Therefore let us continually think as much about our own mortality as about that of all those we love.”
“And perhaps, if only the tale told by wise men is true and there is a bourne to welcome us, then he whom we think we have lost has only been sent on ahead.”
“Good men are mutually helpful; for each gives practice to the other's virtues and thus maintains wisdom at its proper level.”
“The wise man also needs to have his virtues kept in action; and as he prompts himself to do things, so is he prompted by another wise man.”
“The wise will help the wise, not, mark you, because of his own strength merely, but because of the strength of the man whom he assists.”
“The latter, it is true, can by himself develop his own parts; nevertheless, even one who is running well is helped by one who cheers him on.”
“Again, heat is not helped by the addition of further heat, in order to be hot; but the wise man cannot maintain his mental standard without intercourse with friends of his own kind — with whom he may share his goodness.”
“For in training the excellence of another, a man must necessarily train his own.”
“For the mere discovery of a sage by a sage is in itself a desirable event; since everything good is naturally dear to the good man, and for this reason one feels congenial with a good man as one feels congenial with oneself.”
“Moreover, it is in accordance with Nature to show affection for our friends, and to rejoice in their advancement as if it were absolutely our own.”
“Now virtue advises us to arrange the present well, to take thought regarding the future, to deliberate and apply our minds; and one who takes a friend into council with him, can more easily apply his mind and think out his problem.”
“Nevertheless, there are certain matters where even wise men see the facts more clearly in the case of others than in their own.”
“Among the numerous faults of those who pass their lives recklessly and without due reflexion, my good friend Liberalis, I should say that there is hardly any one so hurtful to society as this, that we neither know how to bestow or how to receive a benefit.”
“A benefit is received in the same temper in which it is given, and ought not, therefore, to be given carelessly, for a man thanks himself for that which he receives without the knowledge of the giver.”
“Neither ought we to give after long delay, because in all good offices the will of the giver counts for much, and he who gives tardily must long have been unwilling to give at all.”
“Nor, assuredly, ought we to give in offensive manner, because human nature is so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in the memory; so what can a man expect who insults while he obliges?”
“Let us take them for our guides as far as the weakness of our mortal nature permits; let us bestow benefits, not put them out at interest.”
“As it is, virtue consists in bestowing benefits for which we are not certain of meeting with any return, but whose fruit is at once enjoyed by noble minds.”
“So little influence ought this to have in restraining us from doing good actions, that even though I were denied the hope of meeting with a grateful man, yet the fear of not having my benefits returned would not prevent my bestowing them, because he who does not give, forestalls the vice of him who is ungrateful.”
“The book-keeping of benefits is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake of giving.”
“Whatever may have been the result of your former benefits, persevere in bestowing others upon other men; they will be all the better placed in the hands of the ungrateful, whom shame, or a favourable opportunity, or imitation of others may some day cause to be grateful.”
“Help one man with money, another with credit, another with your favour; this man with good advice, that one with sound maxims.”
“We are to speak of benefits, and to define a matter which is the chief bond of human society; we are to lay down a rule of life, such that neither careless openhandedness may commend itself to us under the guise of goodness of heart, and yet that our circumspection, while it moderates, may not quench our generosity, a quality in which we ought neither to exceed nor to fall short.”
“Wherefore neither gold, nor silver, nor any of those things which are most highly esteemed, are benefits, but the benefit lies in the goodwill of him who gives them.”
“The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo.”
“Or suppose that I have saved a man's children from a shipwreck or a fire, and that afterwards disease or accident has carried them off; even when they are no more, the kindness which was done by means of them remains.”
“It is the art of doing a kindness which both bestows pleasure and gains it by bestowing it, and which does its office by natural and spontaneous impulse.”
“It is not, therefore, the thing which is done or given, but the spirit in which it is done or given, that must be considered, because a benefit exists, not in that which is done or given, but in the mind of the doer or giver.”
“The spirit in which they are given can exalt small things, can glorify mean ones, and can discredit great and precious ones; the objects themselves which are sought after have a neutral nature, neither good nor bad; all depends upon the direction given them by the guiding spirit from which things receive their shape.”
“You see how the mind even in the straitest circumstances finds the means of generosity.”
“We must not consider how great presents are, but in what spirit they are given.”
“Though we ought to be careful to bestow our benefits by preference upon those who are likely to show us gratitude for them, yet we must sometimes do what we have little hope will turn out well, and bestow benefits upon those who we not only think will prove ungrateful, but who we know have been so.”
“First let us give what is necessary, next what is useful, and then what is pleasant, provided that they be lasting.”
“If we have a free choice as to what to give, we should above all choose lasting presents, in order that our gift may endure as long as possible; for few are so grateful as to think of what they have received, even when they do not see it.”
“As we never ought to remind men of what we have given them, we ought all the more to choose presents that will be permanent; for the things themselves will prevent the remembrance of the giver from fading away.”
“Common sense must guide our benefits; we must consider the time and the place, and the character of the receiver, which are the weights in the scale, which cause our gifts to be well or ill received.”
“How far more acceptable a present is, if we give a man what he has not, than if we give him what he has plenty of! if we give him what he has long been searching for in vain, rather than what he sees everywhere!”
“Yet let no one gather from this that I wish to impose any bonds upon generosity; let her go to what lengths she will, so that she go a steady course, not at random.”
“I am no advocate of slackness in giving benefits: the more and the greater they are, the more praise they will bring to the giver.”
“Since no impulse of the human mind can be approved of, even though it springs from a right feeling, unless it be made into a virtue by discretion, I forbid generosity to degenerate into extravagance.”
“That is not a benefit, to which the best part of a benefit, that it be bestowed with judgment, is wanting: a really great sum of money, if it be given neither with discernment nor with good will, is no more a benefit than if it remained hoarded.”
“I think that I can point out the shortest way to this; let us give in the way in which we ourselves should like to receive.”
“Above all we should give willingly, quickly, and without any hesitation; a benefit commands no gratitude if it has hung for a long time in the hands of the giver, if he seems unwilling to part with it, and gives it as though he were being robbed of it.”
“The most acceptable benefits are those which are waiting for us to take them, which are easy to be received, and offer themselves to us, so that the only delay is caused by the modesty of the receiver.”
“The best thing of all is to anticipate a person's wishes; the next, to follow them; the former is the better course, to be beforehand with our friends by giving them what they want before they ask us for it, for the value of a gift is much enhanced by sparing an honest man the misery of asking for it with confusion and blushes.”
“We ought, therefore, to divine every man's wishes, and when we have discovered them, to set him free from the hard necessity of asking; you may be sure that a benefit which comes unasked will be delightful and will not be forgotten.”
“Many who bestow immense benefits spoil them by their silence or slowness of speech, which gives them an air of moroseness, as they say "yes" with a face which seems to say "no." How much better is it to join kind words to kind actions, and to enhance the value of our gifts by a civil and gracious commendation of them!”
“Many, however, there are who, by harsh words and contemptuous manner, make their very kindnesses odious, for by speaking and acting disdainfully they make us sorry that they have granted our requests.”
“Benefits ought to be bestowed at once, but from some persons it is easier to obtain the promise of them than to get them.”
“It is possible to look forward with anxious disquietude even to good things, and, seeing that most benefits consist in a release from some form of misery, a man destroys the value of the benefit which he confers, if he has the power to relieve us, and yet allows us to suffer or to lack pleasure longer than we need.”
“How sweet, how precious is a gift, when he who gives does not permit himself to be thanked, and when while he gives he forgets that he has given!”
“We ought not to make our benefits burdensome, or to add any bitterness to them.”
“Accordingly, all writers on ethical philosophy tell us that some benefits ought to be given in secret, others in public.”
“Those things which it is glorious to receive, such as military decorations or public offices, and whatever else gains in value the more widely it is known, should be conferred in public; on the other hand, when they do not promote a man or add to his social standing, but help him when in weakness, in want, or in disgrace, they should be given silently, and so as to be known only to those who profit by them.”
“I do not deny that, whenever the matter admits of it, one ought to take into consideration the pleasure which we receive from the joy of the receiver of our kindness; but if he ought to have help and is ashamed to receive it—if what we bestow upon him pains him unless it be concealed—I forbear to make my benefits public.”
“We ought not to speak of the benefits which we have conferred; to remind men of them is to ask them to return them.”
“If the farmer ceases his labours after he has put in the seed, he will lose what he has sown; it is only by great pains that seeds are brought to yield a crop; no plant will bear fruit unless it be tended with equal care from first to last, and the same rule is true of benefits.”
“So it is with other benefits; unless you help them, you will lose them; to give is not enough, you must foster what you have given.”
“If you wish those whom you lay under an obligation to be grateful to you, you must not merely confer benefits upon them, but you must also love them.”
“A benefit conferred with haughtiness not only wins no gratitude, but causes dislike.”
“It is pleasant to receive gifts when they are conferred in a kindly and gentle manner, when a superior in giving them does not exalt himself over me, but shows as much good feeling as possible, placing himself on a level with me, giving without parade, and choosing a time when I am glad of his help, rather than waiting till I am in the bitterest need.”
“There are some things which injure those who receive them, things which it is not a benefit to give but to withhold; we should therefore consider the usefulness of our gift rather than the wish of the petitioner to receive it; for we often long for hurtful things, and are unable to discern how ruinous they are, because our judgment is biassed by our feelings; when, however, the longing is past, when that frenzied impulse which masters our good sense has passed away, we abhor those who have given us hurtful gifts.”
“We ought to look at the end of our benefits as well as the beginning, and not merely to give what men are glad to receive, but what they will hereafter be glad to have received.”
“It is a cruel kindness to allow one's self to be won over into granting that which injures those who beg for it.”
“Let us confer benefits of such a kind, that the more they are made use of the better they please, and which never can turn into injuries.”
“As the sum total of friendship consists in making our friends equal to ourselves, we ought to consider the interests of both parties; I must give to him that wants, yet so that I do not want myself; I must help him who is perishing, yet so that I do not perish myself, unless by so doing I can save a great man or a great cause.”
“Every man must consider what his resources and powers are, so that we may not give either more or less than we are able.”
“Nothing is by itself a becoming gift for any one: all depends upon who gives it, to whom he gives it, when, for what reason, where, and so forth, without which details it is impossible to argue about it.”
“So it is with a benefit: unless it be suitable both for the giver and the receiver, it will neither leave the one nor reach the other as it ought.”
“The best man is he who gives readily, never asks for any return, and is delighted when the return is made, because, having really and truly forgotten what he gave, he receives it as though it were a present.”
“Because it is not a benefit to be forced to receive one, neither is it a benefit to be under an obligation to a man to whom we do not wish to be indebted.”
“When a man bestows a benefit, at what does he aim? clearly to be of service and afford pleasure to him upon whom he bestows it.”
“Indeed, the finest part of a benefit is that we have given it without considering whether we shall lose it or not, that we have left all this to the free choice of him who receives it: if I call him before a judge, it begins to be not a benefit, but a loan.”
“Some benefits are great, not because of their amount, but because of the time at which they are bestowed; it is a benefit to give an estate whose fertility can bring down the price of corn, and it is a benefit to give a loaf of bread in time of famine; it is a benefit to give provinces through which flow vast navigable rivers, and it is a benefit, when men are parched with thirst, and can scarcely draw breath through their dry throats, to show them a spring of water.”
“It is hard to give a decision when it is not the thing given, but its meaning, which has to be considered; though what is given is the same, yet if it be given under different circumstances it has a different value.”
“What could be more inhuman than to cause benefits to result in cruelty?”
“Some benefits cost much to the givers, some are of much value to the receivers but cost the givers nothing.”
“To help, to be of service, is the part of a generous and noble mind; he who gives acts like a god, he who demands repayment acts like a money-lender.”
“A benefit becomes greater to the receiver in proportion to his need of it.”
“If we give with the hope of receiving a return, we should give to the richest men, not to the most deserving: whereas we prefer a virtuous poor man to an unmannerly rich one.”
“To take thought, not where your benefit will be best bestowed, but where it may be most profitably placed at interest, from whence you will most easily get it back, is not bestowal of benefits, but usury.”
“I value men by their hearts alone, and, therefore, I shall pass over a rich man if he be unworthy, and give to a good man though he be poor; for he will be grateful however destitute he may be, since whatever he may lose, his heart will still be left him.”
“I do not fish for gain, for pleasure, or for credit, by bestowing benefits: satisfied in doing so with pleasing one man alone, I shall give in order to do my duty.”
“Yet, that you may know that to do good is desirable in itself, we afford help to strangers who put into our harbour only to leave it straightway; we give a ship and fit it out for a shipwrecked stranger to sail back in to his own country.”
“The same is true with benefits; when you ask what return I get for them, I answer, the consciousness of a good action.”
“A benefit has in view the advantage of him upon whom we bestow it, not our own; otherwise we merely bestow it upon ourselves.”
“The true love of giving calls us away from all this, forcibly leads us to put up with loss, and foregoes its own interest, deriving its greatest pleasure from the mere act of doing good.”
“As the infliction of injuries is a thing to be avoided, so is the bestowal of benefits to be desired for its own sake.”
“It is by the interchange of benefits alone that we gain some measure of protection for our lives, and of safety against sudden disasters.”
“It is better to benefit the bad as well, for the sake of benefiting the good, than to stint the good for fear of benefiting the bad.”
“Some things are given to all alike: cities are founded for good and bad men alike; works of genius reach, by publication, even unworthy men; medicine points out the means of health even to the wicked; no one has checked the making up of wholesome remedies for fear that the undeserving should be healed.”
“In a benefit, too, what we commend and admire is, that a man has for the time being forgotten his own interests, in order that he may do good to another; that he has deprived himself of something, in order to bestow it upon another.”
“A gift is not the same as the act of giving, any more than a sailor is the same as the act of sailing.”
“A man may lose his house, his money, his property—everything to which the name of benefit can be given—yet the benefit itself will remain firm and unmoved; no power can prevent his benefactor's having bestowed them, or his having received them.”
“Some men may receive benefits without knowing it, but no man can bestow them without knowing it.”
“The same reason makes it possible for men to do us good without conferring benefits upon us, or to harm us without doing us wrong, because it is intention which distinguishes our friends from our enemies.”
“Nothing can be a benefit which does not proceed from good will, and which is not meant as such by the giver.”
“A mere wish does not constitute a benefit; and just as the best and heartiest wish is not a benefit when fortune prevents its being carried into effect, neither is what fortune bestows upon us a benefit, unless good wishes preceded it.”
“It makes a great difference whether any one bestows a benefit upon us for his own sake, or whether he does so partly for his own sake and partly for ours.”
“It is the essence of spitefulness to say that nothing can be a benefit which does not cause some inconvenience to the giver.”
“It is because they pass from physicians and teachers into friends, and lay us under obligations, not by the skill which they sell to us, but by kindly and familiar good will.”
“You do not bestow a benefit upon a man by ceasing to wrong him, nor can it ever be a piece of good service to anyone to remove from him a burden which you yourself imposed on him.”
“Your friend has done all in his power to return your kindness, but your good fortune stood in his way; no adversity befell you in which he could prove the truth of his friendship; he could not give you money when you were rich, or nurse you when you were in health, or help you when you were succeeding; yet he repaid your kindness, even though you did not receive a benefit from him.”
“Indeed, if a feeling of gratitude has no value in repaying a kindness without giving something material, then no one can be grateful to the gods, whom we can repay by gratitude alone.”
“Never let any one's discourtesy, forgetfulness, or ingratitude, enrage you so much that you do not feel any pleasure at having bestowed a benefit upon him; never let your wrongs drive you into saying, "I wish I had not done it." You ought to take pleasure even in the ill-success of your benefit; he will always be sorry for it, even though you are not even now sorry for it.”
“Consider within yourself, whether you have always shown gratitude to those to whom you owe it, whether no one's kindness has ever been wasted upon you, whether you constantly bear in mind all the benefits which you have received.”
“You say, "I have lost the benefit which I bestowed." Yet do we say that we have lost what we consecrate to heaven, and a benefit well bestowed, even though we get an ill return for it, is to be reckoned among things consecrated.”
“Even in the case of those benefits which appear to be lost, gentleness will do much good; the wounds of the mind ought to be handled as tenderly as those of the body.”
“Bad men are overcome by unwearying goodness, nor does any one receive kindness in so harsh and hostile a spirit as not to love good men even while he does them wrong, when they lay him under the additional obligation of requiring no return for their kindness.”
“I ought to imitate the gods, those noblest disposers of all events, who begin to bestow their benefits on those who know them not, and persist in bestowing them on those who are ungrateful for them.”
“Yet, nevertheless, like the kindest of parents, who only smile at the spiteful words of their children, the gods do not cease to heap benefits upon those who doubt from what source their benefits are derived, but continue impartially distributing their bounty among all the peoples and nations of the earth.”
“Let us follow their example; let us give, even if much be given to no purpose, let us, in spite of this, give to others; nay, even to those upon whom our bounty has been wasted.”
“Suppose a man is ungrateful, he does not injure me, but himself; I had the enjoyment of my benefit when I bestowed it upon him.”
“Because he is ungrateful, I shall not be slower to give but more careful; what I have lost with him, I shall receive back from others.”
“It is no proof of a great mind to give and to throw away one's bounty; the true test of a great mind is to throw away one's bounty and still to give.”
“But in the first place, although a physician is only useful to the sick, yet he is held in honour among the healthy also; and so clemency, though she be invoked by those who deserve punishment, is respected by innocent people as well.”
“Neither ought we to show an indiscriminate and general, nor yet an exclusive clemency; for to pardon every one is as great cruelty as to pardon none; we must take a middle course; but as it is difficult to find the true mean, let us be careful, if we depart from it, to do so upon the side of humanity.”
“That clemency, which is the most humane of virtues, is that which best befits a man, is necessarily an axiom, not only among our own sect, which regards man as a social animal, born for the good of the whole community, but even among those philosophers who give him up entirely to pleasure, and whose words and actions have no other aim than their own personal advantage.”
“If man, as they argue, seeks for quiet and repose, what virtue is there which is more agreeable to his nature than clemency, which loves peace and restrains him from violence?”
“Now clemency becomes no one more than a king or a prince; for great power is glorious and admirable only when it is beneficent; since to be powerful only for mischief is the power of a pestilence.”
“Clemency therefore, as I said before, naturally befits all mankind, but more especially rulers, because in their case there is more for it to save, and it is displayed upon a greater scale.”
“On the other hand, clemency renders every house into which it is admitted happy and peaceful; but though it is more rare, it is on that account even more admirable in a palace.”
“To save men’s lives is the privilege of the loftiest station, which never deserves admiration so much as when it is able to act like the gods, by whose kindness good and bad men alike are brought into the world.”
“Clemency, then, makes princes safer as well as more respected, and is a glory to empires besides being their most trustworthy means of preservation.”
“This is the sort of clemency which befits a prince; wherever he goes, let him make every one more charitable.”
“Nothing can be imagined which is more becoming to a sovereign than clemency, by whatever title and right he may be set over his fellow citizens.”
“He need not pile up lofty citadels, escarp steep hills, cut away the sides of mountains, and fence himself about with many lines of walls and towers: clemency will render a king safe even upon an open plain.”
“Clemency in a sovereign even makes men ashamed to do wrong: for punishment seems far more grievous when inflicted by a merciful man.”
“As well-bred and high-spirited horses are best managed with a loose rein, so mercy gives men’s minds a spontaneous bias towards innocence, and the public think that it is worth observing.”
“Mercy is “a restraining of the mind from vengeance when it is in its power to avenge itself,” or it is “gentleness shown by a powerful man in fixing the punishment of a weaker one.” It is safer to have more than one definition, since one may not include the whole subject, and may, so to speak, lose its cause: mercy, therefore, may likewise be termed a tendency towards mildness in inflicting punishment.”
“However, all men understand mercy to consist in coming short of the penalty which might with justice be inflicted.”
“We may avoid hairsplitting by defining cruelty to be “a tendency of the mind towards harsh measures.” Mercy repels cruelty and bids it be far from her: with strictness she is on terms of amity.”
“Pity considers a man’s misfortunes and does not consider to what they are due: mercy is combined with reason.”
“Thus the wise man will not pity men, but will help them and be of service to them, seeing that he is born to be a help to all men and a public benefit, of which he will bestow a share upon every one.”
“Mercy is free to come to what decision it pleases: she gives her decision, not under any statute, but according to equity and goodness: she may acquit the defendant, or impose what damages she pleases.”
“It is hard to say whether it is more dishonourable for the receiver to disown a benefit, or for the giver to demand a return of it: for a benefit is a loan, the repayment of which depends merely upon the good feeling of the debtor.”
“To misuse a benefit like a spendthrift is most shameful, because we do not need our wealth but only our intention to set us free from the obligation of it; for a benefit is repaid by being acknowledged.”
“We find many men ungrateful, yet we make more men so, because at one time we harshly and reproachfully demand some return for our bounty, at another we are fickle and regret what we have given, at another we are peevish and apt to find fault with trifles.”
“Who can be grateful for what has been disdainfully flung to him, or angrily cast at him, or been given him out of weariness, to avoid further trouble?”
“Do thou teach me how I may bestow more good things, and be more grateful to those who have earned my gratitude, and how the minds of both parties may vie with one another, the giver in forgetting, the receiver in remembering his debt.”
“How far more grateful is a benefit, how far more deeply does it impress itself upon the mind, never to be forgotten, when we rejoice to think not so much of what it is, as from whom we have received it!”
“The rule for the giver and receiver of a benefit is, that the one should straightway forget that he has given, the other should never forget that he has received it.”
“When we have decided to accept, let us accept with cheerfulness, showing pleasure, and letting the giver see it, so that he may at once receive some return for his goodness: for as it is a good reason for rejoicing to see our friend happy, it is a better one to have made him so.”
“Let us, therefore, show how acceptable a gift is by loudly expressing our gratitude for it; and let us do so, not only in the hearing of the giver, but everywhere.”
“He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first instalment of it.”
“One ought to proportion one's thanks to the importance of the benefit received, and to use the phrases, "You have laid more of us than you think under an obligation," for everyone likes to find his good actions extend further than he expected.”
“He who intends to be grateful, let him think how he shall repay a kindness while he is receiving it.”
“Greed does not permit any one to be grateful; for what is given is never equal to its base desires, and the more we receive the more we covet, for avarice is much more eager when it has to deal with great accumulations of wealth, just as the power of a flame is enormously greater in proportion to the size of the conflagration from which it springs.”
“We shall never want a subject for complaint if we look at benefits on their wrong side.”
“A man steers well who reaches the port for which he started: a dart hurled by a steady hand performs its duty if it hits the mark; one who bestows a benefit wishes it to be received with gratitude; he gets what he wanted if it be well received.”
“I receive what was given me in the same spirit in which it was given: then I have repaid it.”
“True; but a benefit is in an evil plight if we cannot be grateful for it even when we are empty-handed.”
“So when a benefit has been graciously received, the giver has already received gratitude, but has not yet received recompense for it: that which we owe in return is therefore something apart from the benefit itself, for we have paid for the benefit itself when we accept it in a grateful spirit.”
“In the next place, a benefit is not repaid in the same manner as a loan: you have no reason for expecting me to offer you any payment; the account between us depends upon the feelings alone.”
“Receive a benefit, embrace it, rejoice, not that you have received it, but that you have to owe it and return it; then you will never be in peril of the great sin of being rendered ungrateful by mischance.”
“In short, repayment requires gratitude, time, opportunity, and the help of fortune; whereas, he who remembers a benefit is grateful for it, and that too without expenditure.”
“Since gratitude demands neither labour, wealth, nor good fortune, he who fails to render it has no excuse behind which to shelter himself; for he who places a benefit so far away that it is out of his sight, never could have meant to be grateful for it.”
“In the next place, since none of us think of any time but the present, and but few turn back their thoughts to the past, it results that we forget our teachers, and all the benefits which we have obtained from them, because we have altogether left our childhood behind us: thus, all that was done for us in our youth perishes unremembered, because our youth itself is never reviewed.”
“How can any man feel gratitude for benefits, if he skips through his whole life entirely engrossed with the present and the future?”
“So little does forgetfulness excuse ingratitude, that even the remembrance of a benefit may leave us ungrateful.”
“On the other hand, he who takes pleasure in receiving a benefit, enjoys an unvarying and continuous happiness, which he derives from consideration, not of the thing given, but of the intention of the giver.”
“A benefit gives perpetual joy to a grateful man, but pleases an ungrateful one only for a moment.”
“It is our duty to respect the virtuous, not only when present with us, but also when removed from our sight: as they have made it their study not to bestow their benefits upon one age alone, but to leave them existing after they themselves have passed away, so let us not confine our gratitude to a single age.”
“It is my duty to show a grateful mind, but in some cases my own poverty, in others the prosperity of the friend to whom I owe some return, will not permit me to give it.”
“Yet I ought not to refuse to receive a new benefit, because I have not repaid the former one.”
“No one, therefore, can be conquered in a contest of benefits, if he knows how to owe a debt, if he wishes to make a return for what he has received, and raises himself to the same level with his friend in spirit, though he cannot do so in material gifts.”
“No one, therefore, is worsted by benefits, because each man's gratitude is to be measured by his will.”
“And if fortune prevents any one from repaying a kindness, he need not, therefore, blush, as though he were vanquished; there is no disgrace in failing to reach your object, provided you attempt to reach it.”
“How much better is it to be thankful for the pleasures which one has received, not to reckon up the years of others, but to set a high value upon one's own, and score them to one's credit, saying, "God thought me worthy of this; I am satisfied with it; he might have given me more, but this, too, is a benefit." Let us be grateful towards both gods and men, grateful to those who have given us anything, and grateful even to those who have given anything to our relatives.”
“To awaken some men, it is only necessary to stir them, not to strike them; in like manner, with some men, the feeling of honour about returning a benefit is not extinct, but slumbering.”
“On the other hand, I am not so unjust as to feel no gratitude to a man, because, while helping me, he helped himself also; for I do not insist upon his consulting my interests to the exclusion of his own—nay, I should prefer that the benefit which I receive may be of even greater advantage to the giver, provided that he thought of us both when giving it, and meant to divide it between me and himself.”
“Pray that you may return my kindnesses when I need their return, but do not pray that I may need them.”
“What is there to prevent your returning your benefactor's kindness, even while he is in prosperity?”
“In returning a kindness it makes a great difference whether you are eager to bestow a benefit, or merely to free yourself from a debt.”
“He who wishes to return a benefit will study his friend's interests, and will hope that a suitable occasion will arise; he who only wishes to free himself from an obligation will be eager to do so by any means whatever, which shows very bad feeling.”
“How much better and more righteous is it to bear in mind what we owe to our friends, and to offer repayment, not to obtrude it, nor to think ourselves too much indebted; because a benefit is a common bond which connects two persons.”
“Now, therefore, you know the answer to the question which was put to us, “Why, if the wise man receives neither injury nor insult, he punishes those who do these things?” He does not revenge himself, but corrects them.”
“He will do as Cato did when he was struck in the face; he did not flare up and revenge the outrage, he did not even pardon it, but ignored it, showing more magnanimity in not acknowledging it than if he had forgiven it.”
“Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth.”
“Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement.”
“Anger, as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should exist in man’s peaceful breast is least of all according to his nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony, and is bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by terror, but by love towards one another.”
“Similarly, it is the duty of the chief administrator of the laws, or the ruler of a state, to correct ill-disposed men, as long as he is able, with words, and even with gentle ones, that he may persuade them to do what they ought, inspire them with a love of honour and justice, and cause them to hate vice and set store upon virtue.”
“In the first place, it is easier to banish dangerous passions than to rule them; it is easier not to admit them than to keep them in order when admitted; for when they have established themselves in possession of the mind they are more powerful than the lawful ruler, and will in no wise permit themselves to be weakened or abridged.”
“The best plan is to reject straightway the first incentives to anger, to resist its very beginnings, and to take care not to be betrayed into it: for if once it begins to carry us away, it is hard to get back again into a healthy condition, because reason goes for nothing when once passion has been admitted to the mind, and has by our own free will been given a certain authority, it will for the future do as much as it chooses, not only as much as you will allow it.”
“For this cause reason will never call to its aid blind and fierce impulses, over whom she herself possesses no authority, and which she never can restrain save by setting against them similar and equally powerful passions, as for example, fear against anger, anger against sloth, greed against timidity.”
“The mind can find no safe repose there, it must needs be shaken and tempest-tossed if it be safe only because of its own defects, if it cannot be brave without anger, diligent without greed, quiet without fear: such is the despotism under which a man must live if he becomes the slave of a passion.”
“Moreover, of what use is anger, when the same end can be arrived at by reason?”
“To feel anger on behalf of one’s friends does not show a loving, but a weak mind: it is admirable and worthy conduct to stand forth as the defender of one’s parents, children, friends, and countrymen, at the call of duty itself, acting of one’s own free will, forming a deliberate judgment, and looking forward to the future, not in an impulsive, frenzied fashion.”
“No passion is more eager for revenge than anger, and for that very reason it is unapt to obtain it: being over hasty and frantic, like almost all desires, it hinders itself in the attainment of its own object, and therefore has never been useful either in peace or war: for it makes peace like war, and when in arms forgets that Mars belongs to neither side, and falls into the power of the enemy, because it is not in its own.”
“But it is not expedient that anger should be increased: therefore it is not expedient that it should exist at all, for that which grows bad by increase cannot be a good thing.”
“How much more philanthropic it is to deal with the erring in a gentle and fatherly spirit, and to call them into the right course instead of hunting them down?”
“Nothing becomes one who inflicts punishment less than anger, because the punishment has all the more power to work reformation if the sentence be pronounced with deliberate judgment.”
“Neither ought it to be believed that anger contributes anything to magnanimity: what it gives is not magnanimity but vain glory.”
“There is, I say, a great difference between a lofty and a proud mind: anger brings about nothing grand or beautiful.”
“There is therefore nothing great or noble in anger, even when it seems to be powerful and to contemn both gods and men alike.”
“A man may think himself injured, may wish to avenge his wrongs, and then may be persuaded by some reason or other to give up his intention and calm down: I do not call that anger, it is an emotion of the mind which is under the control of reason.”
“This evil takes its rise from anger; for anger, after it has by long use and indulgence made a man forget mercy, and driven all feelings of human fellowship from his mind, passes finally into cruelty.”
“To avoid being angry with individuals, you must pardon the whole mass, you must grant forgiveness to the entire human race.”
“How great a blessing is it to escape from anger, that chief of all evils, and therewith from frenzy, ferocity, cruelty, and madness, its attendants?”
“What is more restful than a mind at peace, and what more toilsome than anger?”
“Anger ought to be removed from our minds: even those who say that it ought to be kept low admit this to some extent: let it be got rid of altogether; there is nothing to be gained by it.”
““What? do not circumstances arise which provoke us to anger?” Yes: but at those times above all others we ought to choke down our wrath.”
“Now we ought to fight against the first causes of evil: the cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained.”
“We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth.”
“We ought, therefore, to plead the cause of the absent against ourselves, and to keep our anger in abeyance: for a punishment which has been postponed may yet be inflicted, but when once inflicted cannot be recalled.”
“We ought to free our minds of suspicion and mistrust, those most untrustworthy causes of anger.”
“The greatest remedy for anger is delay: beg anger to grant you this at the first, not in order that it may pardon the offence, but that it may form a right judgment about it: if it delays, it will come to an end.”
“Therefore it is also a crime to injure any man: for he is your fellow-citizen in a larger state.”
““But anger possesses a certain pleasure of its own, and it is sweet to pay back the pain you have suffered.” Not at all; it is not honourable to requite injuries by injuries, in the same way as it is to repay benefits by benefits.”
“Revenge and retaliation are words which men use and even think to be righteous, yet they do not greatly differ from wrong-doing, except in the order in which they are done: he who renders pain for pain has more excuse for his sin; that is all.”
““We are treated,” says our opponent, “with more respect if we revenge our injuries.” If we make use of revenge merely as a remedy, let us use it without anger, and not regard revenge as pleasant, but as useful: yet often it is better to pretend not to have received an injury than to avenge it.”
“We must, therefore, refrain from anger, whether he who provokes us be on a level with ourselves, or above us, or below us.”
“Let us also reflect, how much credit the tale of our forgiveness will confer upon us, how many men may be made into valuable friends by forgiveness.”
“Whenever we are loth to pardon any one, let us think whether it would be to our advantage that all men should be inexorable.”
“If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.”
“Would not every man wish to lay aside anger when he sees that it begins by injuring himself?”
“When men employ anger as the most powerful of agents, consider it to be a proof of power, and reckon a speedy revenge among the greatest blessings of great prosperity, would you not wish me to warn them that he who is the slave of his own anger is not powerful, nor even free?”
“How far more glorious is it to throw back all wrongs and insults from oneself, like one wearing armour of proof against all weapons, for revenge is an admission that we have been hurt.”
“There is no greater proof of magnanimity than that nothing which befalls you should be able to move you to anger.”
“Some stories may be so construed as to appear to be insults: wherefore it is best to put some aside, to laugh at others, and to pardon others.”
“There are many ways in which anger may be checked; most things may be turned into jest.”
“Let us put ourselves in the place of him with whom we are angry: at present an overweening conceit of our own importance makes us prone to anger, and we are quite willing to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves.”
“No one will postpone his anger: yet delay is the best remedy for it, because it allows its first glow to subside, and gives time for the cloud which darkens the mind either to disperse or at any rate to become less dense.”
“The man who is not angry remains unshaken by injury: he who is angry has been moved by it.”
“Let us therefore be more gentle one to another: we are bad men, living among bad men: there is only one thing which can afford us peace, and that is to agree to forgive one another.”
“Revenge takes up much time, and throws itself in the way of many injuries while it is smarting under one.”
“We all retain our anger longer than we feel our hurt: how far better it were to take the opposite course and not meet one mischief by another.”
“If you will do so at some time, how better is it that you should abandon anger than that anger should abandon you?”
“Let us not moderate anger, but get rid of it altogether: what can moderation have to do with an evil habit?”
“This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to any one.”