Seneca On Providence Quotes

It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

Consumerism provides no psychological satisfaction, because there is no limit to our desires for things that we never needed in the first place.

Even for studies, where expenditure is most honorable, it is justifiable only so long as it is kept within bounds. What is the use of having countless books and libraries, whose titles their owners can scarcely read through in a whole lifetime? The learner is, not instructed, but burdened by the mass of them, and it is much better to surrender yourself to a few authors than to wander through many.

I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 4.3

All outdoors may be bedlam, provided there is no disturbance within.

I force my mind to concentrate, and keep from straying to things outside itself. All outdoors may be bedlam, provided that there is no disturbance within.

The belly will not listen to advice; it makes demands, it importunes. And yet it is not a troublesome creditor; you can send it away at small cost, provided only that you give it what you owe, not merely all you are able to

providence which could be spoken of, almost according to choice or context, under a variety of names or descriptions including the divine reason, creative reason, nature,

write in this way, – provided that while you write you read, remembering that everything you hear or read, is to be applied to conduct, and to the alleviation of passion's fury.

Consider the whole world reconnoitre individuals j who is there whose life is not taken up with providing for to morrow Do you ask what harm there is in this An infinite deal for such men do not live but are about to live they defer every thing from day to day however circumspect we are life will still outrun us.

We must also make ourselves flexible, to avoid becoming too devoted to the plans we have formed, and we should make the transition to the state that chance has brought us to without dreading a change either in our purpose or our condition, provided that we are not falling prey to fickleness, a vice entirely at odds with repose.

nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. 11. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich. Farewell.

For life should be provided with conspicuous illustrations. Let us not always be harking back to the dim past.

life is not incomplete if it is honourable. At whatever point you leave off living, provided you leave off nobly, your life is a whole.

Misfortune is virtue's opportunity

Al piloto conocerás en la tormenta y al soldado en la batalla

In the same way as extravagance in dress and entertaining are indications of a diseased community, so an aberrant literary style, provided it is widespread, shows that the spirit (from which people’s words derive) has also come to grief.

THIS IS WHAT WE’RE HERE FOR “Why then are we offended? Why do we complain? This is what we’re here for.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 5.7b–8 No one said life was easy. No one said it would be fair. Don’t forget, though, that you come from a long, unbroken line of ancestors who survived unimaginable adversity, difficulty, and struggle. It’s their genes and their blood that run through your body right now. Without them, you wouldn’t be here. You’re an heir to an impressive tradition—and as their viable offspring, you’re capable of what they are capable of. You’re meant for this. Bred for it. Just something to keep in mind if things get tough.

[T]he old stories of human relationships with animals can't be discounted. They are not primitive; they are primal. They reflect insights that came from considerable and elaborate systems of knowledge, intellectual traditions and ways of living that were tried, tested, and found true over many thousands of years and on all continents. But perhaps the truest story is with the animals themselves because we have found our exemplary ways through them, both in the older world and in the present time, both physically and spiritually. According to the traditions of the Seneca animal society, there were medicine animals in ancient times that entered into relationships with people. The animals themselves taught ceremonies that were to be performed in their names, saying they would provide help for humans if this relationship was kept. We have followed them, not only in the way the early European voyagers and prenavigators did, by following the migrations of whales in order to know their location, or by releasing birds from cages on their sailing vessels and following them towards land, but in ways more subtle and even more sustaining. In a discussion of the Wolf Dance of the Northwest, artists Bill Holm and William Reid said that 'It is often done by a woman or a group of women. The dance is supposed to come from the wolves. There are different versions of its origin and different songs, but the words say something like, 'Your name is widely known among the wolves. You are honored by the wolves.' In another recent account, a Northern Cheyenne ceremonialist said that after years spent recovering from removals and genocide, indigenous peoples are learning their lost songs back from the wolves who retained them during the grief-filled times, as thought the wolves, even though threatened in their own numbers, have had compassion for the people.... It seems we have always found our way across unknown lands, physical and spiritual, with the assistance of the animals. Our cultures are shaped around them and we are judged by the ways in which we treat them. For us, the animals are understood to be our equals. They are still our teachers. They are our helpers and healers. They have been our guardians and we have been theirs. We have asked for, and sometimes been given, if we've lived well enough, carefully enough, their extraordinary powers of endurance and vision, which we have added to our own knowledge, powers and gifts when we are not strong enough for the tasks required of us. We have deep obligations to them. Without other animals, we are made less. (from her essay "First People")

The founder of the universe, who assigned to us the laws of life, provided that we should live well, but not in luxury. Everything needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties. Let us use this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 119.15b

provided I may look upon the sun and the moon and gaze at the other planets; provided I may trace their risings and settings, their periods and the causes of their travelling faster or slower; provided I may behold all the stars that shine at night – some fixed, others not travelling far afield but circling within the same area; some suddenly shooting forth, and others dazzling the eye with scattered fire, as if they are falling, or gliding past with a long trail of blazing light; provided I can commune with these and, so far as humans may, associate with the divine, and provided I can keep my mind always directed upwards, striving for a vision of kindred things – what does it matter what ground I stand on?

Epicurus. Frag. 477 and 200 Usener] "Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. 11. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

The Stoics saw the world as a single great community in which all men are brothers, ruled by a supreme providence which could be spoken of, almost according to choice or context, under a variety of names or descriptions including the divine reason, creative reason, nature, the spirit or purpose of the universe, destiny, a personal god, even (by way of concession to traditional religion) ‘the gods’.

A so-called busy man may declare the day to be endless, or may mourn how the hours crawl slowly toward dinner time, but this is no evidence that this man’s life is long. For when the busy man finally has some time to himself he’s left to stew in boundless boredom with nothing to do and with no clue how to fill his day. Restlessly these types seek new ways to be at leisure and the time between play needles them to no end. Their excitement peaks at the announcement of a gladiator bout or some other such spectacle and they long to skip the days that lie between now and the grand day of extravagant entertainment. Their impatient waiting for something they desire gives them the illusion that time is passing by slowly. Yet their days on Earth remain finite, even as they fritter away time bobbing from one pleasure to another. For these wasters, uneventful afternoons of no play are long and hateful. Yet a single night out drinking with a harlot seems to fly by in no time! This strange perception of the passage of time depending on one’s mood and company has provided material for the poets. We have heard tales of how when Jupiter was with a lover the night he spent in her pleasant company seemed to pass twice as long. But doesn’t using the story concerning a god as an example of how to make time pass longer merely encourage more human vice? Can a night that costs a man so much really be regretted by that same man for being so short? They waste the day in anticipation of the night, then spend the night worrying about the coming dawn.

It's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it's been given to us in generous measure for accomplishing the greatest things, if the whole of it is well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and careless living, and when it's spent on no worthwhile pursuit, death finally presses and we realize that the life which we didn't notice passing has passed away. So it is: the life we are given isn't short but we make it so; we're not ill provided but we are wasteful of life.

[...] Let me share with you the saying which pleased me to-day. It, too, is culled from another man's Garden: "Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

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. … 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. Into what dangerous and miserable servitude he falls who suffers pleasures and sorrows (two unfaithful and cruel commanders) to possess him successively! I do not speak this either as a bar to the fair enjoyment of lawful pleasures, or to the gentle flatteries of reasonable expectations. On the contrary, I would have men to be always in good humour, provided that it arises from their own souls, and is 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 brave mind, that has fortune under its feet. He that can look death in the face, and bid it welcome; open his door to poverty, and bridle his appetites; this is the man whom Providence has established in the possession of inviolable delights. The pleasures of the vulgar are ungrounded, thin, and superficial; but the others are solid and eternal.

think the Princess should read the New Testament both night and morning, and also certain selected portions of the Old Testament. She must become fully conversant with the gospels. She should, I believe also study Plutarch's Enchiridion, Seneca's Maxims, and of course Plato and Cicero.” He glanced at his friend. “I suggest that Sir Thomas More's Utopia would provide good reading.

December 20th FEAR THE FEAR OF DEATH “Do you then ponder how the supreme of human evils, the surest mark of the base and cowardly, is not death, but the fear of death? I urge you to discipline yourself against such fear, direct all your thinking, exercises, and reading this way—and you will know the only path to human freedom.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.26.38–39 To steel himself before he committed suicide rather than submit to Julius Caesar’s destruction of the Roman Republic, the great Stoic philosopher Cato read a bit of Plato’s Phaedo. In it, Plato writes, “It is the child within us that trembles before death.” Death is scary because it is such an unknown. No one can come back and tell us what it is like. We are in the dark about it. As childlike and ultimately ignorant as we are about death, there are plenty of wise men and women who can at least provide some guidance. There’s a reason that the world’s oldest people never seem to be afraid of death: they’ve had more time to think about it than we have (and they realized how pointless worrying was). There are other wonderful resources: Florida Scott-Maxwell’s Stoic diary during her terminal illness, The Measure of My Days, is one. Seneca’s famous words to his family and friends, who had broken down and begged with his executioners, is another. “Where,” Seneca gently chided them, “are your maxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so many years’ study against evils to come?” Throughout philosophy there are inspiring, brave words from brave men and women who can help us face this fear. There is another helpful consideration about death from the Stoics. If death is truly the end, then what is there exactly to fear? For everything from your fears to your pain receptors to your worries and your remaining wishes, they will perish with you. As frightening as death might seem, remember: it contains within it the end of fear.

It is not that we have so little time, but that we lose so much… the life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully. ~ SENECA, On the Shortness of Life

A reading list that Jefferson first drafted in 1771, five years before he wrote the Declaration, provided an answer. Jefferson sent the list to his friend Robert Skipwith, who had asked for books to include in a private library, and revised it over the years. Under the category of “religion,” Jefferson’s reading list includes Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, as well as a top ten list of other works of classical and Enlightenment moral philosophy:11 Locke’s Conduct of the Understanding in the Search of Truth. Xenophon’s memoirs of Socrates, translated by Sarah Fielding. Epictetus, translated by Elizabeth Carter. Marcus Aurelius, translated by Collins. Seneca, translated by Roger L’Estrange. Cicero’s Offices, by Guthrie. Cicero’s Tusculan questions. Ld.

I don’t know why it’s you, I just know that it is, Seneca,” he said. “So, before I lay you out on my bed and do my best to ruin you, I want you to understand that I’m in this for the long haul. This is real for me.” “I…” I had to clear my throat. “I’m not sure what to say to that.” “I’m not expecting you to say anything,” he replied. “I’m just telling you what the expectation is when it comes to our relationship.” “Mine or yours?” His lips twitched in a smirk. “Yours,” he answered. “I already know what’s expected of me.” “Oh, yeah? And what is expected of you?” “I’m expected to love you, protect you, provide for you, and do whatever else it is that you might need me to do,” he said, and I could feel my knees weaken. “You might as well know now how this works, baby.” “And how does it work?” “We might as well be married,” he said right before his lips found mine.

A significant proportion of humanity’s cultural achievements owe their existence to the exploitation of conquered populations. The profits and prosperity brought by Roman imperialism provided Cicero, Seneca and St Augustine with the leisure and wherewithal to think and write; the Taj Mahal could not have been built without the wealth accumulated by Mughal exploitation of their Indian subjects; and the Habsburg Empire’s profits from its rule over its Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian-speaking provinces paid Haydn’s salaries and Mozart’s commissions.

I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent— no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” Our challenges enable us to understand ourselves better and learn our limits, as well as our potential. Seneca discusses this in great depth in his work, On Providence. He states that it is “not what you endure, but how you endure [which] is important.

June 4th THIS IS WHAT WE’RE HERE FOR “Why then are we offended? Why do we complain? This is what we’re here for.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 5.7b–8 No one said life was easy. No one said it would be fair. Don’t forget, though, that you come from a long, unbroken line of ancestors who survived unimaginable adversity, difficulty, and struggle. It’s their genes and their blood that run through your body right now. Without them, you wouldn’t be here. You’re an heir to an impressive tradition—and as their viable offspring, you’re capable of what they are capable of. You’re meant for this. Bred for it. Just something to keep in mind if things get tough.

At a time in which parchment was scarce, many ancient writers were simply erased, scrubbed away so that their pages could be reused for more elevated themes. Palimpsests—manuscripts in which one manuscript has been scraped (psao) again (palin)—provide glimpses of the moments at which these ancient works vanished. A last copy of Cicero’s De re publica was written over by Augustine on the Psalms. A biographical work by Seneca disappeared beneath yet another Old Testament. A codex of Sallust’s histories was scrubbed away to make room for more St. Jerome. Other ancient texts were lost through ignorance. Despised and ignored, over the years, they simply crumbled into dust, food for bookworms but not for thought. The work of Democritus, one of the greatest Greek philosophers and the father of atomic theory, was entirely lost. Only one percent of Latin literature survived the centuries. Ninety-nine percent was lost. One can achieve a great deal by the blunt weapons of indifference and sheer stupidity.

What a foolish forgetfulness of our mortality, to put off wholesome counsels until our fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to choose that our lives shall begin at a point which few of us ever reach.

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