The fact that the body is lying down is no reason for supposing that the mind is at peace. Your merits should not be outward facing. If there where anything substantial in them they would sooner or later bring a sense of fullness; as it is they simply aggravate the thirst of those who swallow them.
Seneca All Nature Is Too Little
You really need to give the skin of your face a good rub and then not listen to yourself! It is in no man's power to wish for whatever he wants; but he has it in his power not to wish for what he hasn't got, and cheerfully make the most of the things that do come his way. Set yourself a limit which you couldn't even exceed if you wanted to, and say good-bye at last to those deceptive prizes more precious to those who hope for them than to those who have won them. Every hour of the day countless situations arise that call for advice, and for that advice we have to look to philosophy. Praise in hun what can be neither given nor snatched away, what is peculiarly a man's. And then we need to look down on wealth, which is the wage of slavery. All nature is too little seneca mountain. Away with pomp and show; as for the uncertain lot that the future has in store for me, why should I demand from fortune that she could give me this and that rather than demand from myself that I should not ask for them? I could show you a man who has been a Consul who is a slave to his 'little old woman', a millionaire who is the slave of a little girl in domestic service. The one law mankind has that is free of all discrimination.
The things you're running away from are with you all the time. You can only acquire it successfully if you cease to feel any sense of shame. No man's good by accident. He thinks he is wasting his time if he is not being talked about. Preserve a sense of proportion in your attitude to everything that pleases you, and make the most of them while they are at their best. If you want to feel appreciative where the gods and your life are concerned, just think how many people you have outdone. Seneca all nature is too little. Let's have some difference between you and the books! A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. And there is nothing so certain as the fact that the harmful consequences of inactivity are dissipated by activity. No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own. You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away. We must see to it that nothing takes us by surprise.
All Nature Is Too Little Seneca Hill
Inwardly everything should be different but our outward face should conform with the crowd. Show me a man who isn't a slave; one is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day – that your faults die before you do. All nature is too little seneca hill. And complaining away about one's sufferings after they are over is something I think should be banned. Virtue has to be learnt.
From now on do some teaching as well. If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place, but to be a different person. We should project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn and have in mind every possible eventuality instead of only the usual course of events. What you might find more surprising is the fact that they do not confine themselves to admiring passages that contain defects, but admire the actual defects themselves as well. People who are really busy never have enough time to become skittish. Only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his social position, which after all is only something that we wear like clothing. Let's leave the daytime to the generality of people. Letters from a Stoic – Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Even if all this is true, it is past history. Plenty of people squander fortunes, plenty of people keep mistresses. MOVE TO BETTER COMPANY (AKA read books of wise men).
All Nature Is Too Little Seneca Mountain
All this hurrying from place to place won't bring you any relief, for you're travelling in the company of your own emotions, followed by your troubles all the way. This is the way to liberate the spirit that still needs to be rescued from its miserable state of slavery. Death is not an evil. So long, in fact, as you remain in ignorance of what to aim at and what to avoid, what is essential and what is superfluous, what is upright or honourable conduct and what is not, it will not be travelling but drifting. And since it is invariably unfamiliarity that makes a thing more formidable than it really is, this habit of continual reflection will ensure that no form of adversity finds you a complete beginner. Nobody will keep the things he hears to himself, and nobody will repeat just what he hears and no more. Poverty's no evil to anyone unless he kicks against it. Certainly you should discuss everything with a friend; but before you do so, discuss in your mind the man himself. The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.
It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter. You must inevitably either hate or imitate the world. There's no thing as 'peaceful stillness' except where reason has lulled it to rest. Follow nature and you will feel no need of craftsmen. Let me indicate here how men can prove that their words are their own: let them put their preaching into practice. In a man praise is due only to what is his very own. …] so called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments. Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.
All Nature Is Too Little Seneca Ks
We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them. After friendship is formed you must trust, but before that you must judge. What difference does the character of the place make? What we hear philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. No need to do as the crowd does: to follow the common, well-worn path in life is a sordid way to behave. What is required is not a lot of words but effectual ones. Travel won't make a better or saner man of you. Let us expand our life: action is its theme and duty. What really ruins our characters is the fact that none of us looks back over his life. You'll be importing your own with you. Gold and silver and everything else that clutters our prosperous homes should be discarded. For that unguarded pace will give rise to a lot of expressions of which you would otherwise be critical. First we have to reject the life of pleasures; they make us soft and womanish; they are insistent in their demands, and what is more, require us to make insistent demands on fortune. Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.
Neither will anyone who has failed to keep a story to himself keep the name of his informant to himself. Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Look at the number of things we buy because others have bought them or because they're in most people's houses. Does it surprise you that running away doesn't do you any good? Hence our need to be stimulated into general activity and kept occupied and busy with pursuits of the right nature whenever we are victims of the sort of idleness that wearies of itself. Why be concerned about others, come to that, when you've outdone your own self? The night should be kept within bounds, and a proportion of it transferred to the day. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come.