Well, but see how each of them endured his fate, and if they endured it bravely, long in your heart for courage as great as theirs; if they died in a womanish and cowardly manner, nothing was lost: either they deserved that you should admire their courage, or else they did not deserve that you should wish to imitate their cowardice: for what can be more shameful than that the greatest men should die so bravely as to make people cowards. Seneca once exchanged letters with his friend Serenus, on how to free the mind from anxiety and worry in a Stoic way. The dead have often been wailed for in my neighbourhood: the torch and taper have often been borne past my door before the bier of one who has died before his time: the crash of falling buildings has often resounded by my side: night has snatched away many of those with whom I have become intimate in the forum, the Senate-house, and in society, and has sundered the hands which were joined in friendship: ought I to be surprised if the dangers which have always been circling around me at last assail me? "[10] Seneca uses the dialogue to address an issue that cropped up many times in his life: the desire for a life of contemplation and the need for active political engagement. Since we, however, have not such strength of mind as this, we ought at any rate to diminish the extent of our property, in order to be less exposed to the assaults of fortune: those men whose bodies can be within the shelter of their armour, are more fitted for war than those whose huge size everywhere extends beyond it, and exposes them to wounds: the best amount of property to have is that which is enough to keep us from poverty, and which yet is not far removed from it. We have seen Ptolemaeus King of Africa, and Mithridates King of Armenia, under the charge of Gaius's[9] guards: the former was sent into exile, the latter chose it in order to make his exile more honourable. The inventor of wine is called Liber, not from the licence which he gives to our tongues, but because he liberates the mind from the bondage of cares, and emancipates it, animates it, and renders it more daring in all that it attempts. This has driven some men to death, because by frequently altering their purpose they were always brought back to the same point, and had left themselves no room for anything new. works Kanus had no fear of this: the good faith with which Gaius carried out such orders as these was well known. Serenus explains that he feels agitated, and in a state of unstable immobility, "as if I were on a boat that doesn't move forward and is tossed about. As a tragedian, he is best-known for his Medea and Thyestes. to indicate a header line on the page. Disease, captivity, disaster, conflagration, are none of them unexpected: I always knew with what disorderly company Nature had associated me. Still, we must observe moderation in this matter, for there is a great difference between living simply and living slovenly. I am well aware that these oscillations of mind are not perilous and that they threaten me with no serious disorder: to express what I complain of by an exact simile, I am not suffering from a storm, but from sea-sickness. Of my own free will I am ready to return what you gave me before I could think: take me away.'" We must not force crops from rich fields, for an unbroken course of heavy crops will soon exhaust their fertility, and so also the liveliness of our minds will be destroyed by unceasing labour, but they will recover their strength after a short period of rest and relief: for continuous toil produces a sort of numbness and sluggishness. 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 anyone who looks at it beforehand. Cato is reproached with drunkenness: but whoever casts this in his teeth will find it easier to turn his reproach into a commendation than to prove that Cato did anything wrong: however, we ought not to do it often, for fear the mind should contract evil habits, though it ought sometimes to be forced into frolic and frankness, and to cast off dull sobriety for a while. The Gutenberg Project is a volunteer effort, so I signed up to provide a cleaned-up, proofread, and formatted version of this 1889 edition to include in their collection. Consolation to Helvia, and On Tranquility of Mind. Andrea Willis Humanities 1101 Instructor: Leila Wells Rogers 2, December, 2012 Seneca's, On Tranquility of Mind is a dialogue written to Annaeus Serenus. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. Thus, it is never possible for so many outlets to be closed against your ambition that more will not remain open to it: but see whether the whole prohibition does not arise from your own fault. Often a man who is very old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that he has lived a long time.". Consolation to Helvia, On the Tranquility of Mind, and On the Shortness of Liferightfully selected to be the first letters in this anthologyhave some of the best hidden gems of classic practical wisdom. Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger usually known as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. report. It does good also to take walks out of doors, that our spirits may be raised and refreshed by the open air and fresh breeze: sometimes we gain strength by driving in a carriage, by travel, by change of air, or by social meals and a more generous allowance of wine: at times we ought to drink even to intoxication, not so as to drown, but merely to dip ourselves in wine: for wine washes away troubles and dislodges them from the depths of the mind, and acts as a remedy to sorrow as it does to some diseases. Seneca begins his answer by assuring Serenus that what he is after is indeed the greatest thing, a state that he calls peace of mind (or tranquillity). But in our quest to do the best we can, we are apt to defeat ourselves by pushing against life with the brute force of uncalibrated ambition, razing our peace of mind on the sharp-edged sense that there is always more to achieve. Again, those whom unkind fate has placed in critical situations will be safer if they show as little pride in their proud position as may be, and do all they are able to bring down their fortunes to the level of other men's. Let us now return to town: our ears have too long missed its shouts and noise: it would be pleasant also to enjoy the sight of human bloodshed." and switch to different pages images (either by going to a specific page number, go by going to the previous or next page). Since the position of the Whether she moves at her ease and enjoys her just rights, or can only appear abroad on sufferance and is forced to shorten sail to the tempest, whether it be unemployed, silent, and pent up in a narrow lodging, or openly displayed, in whatever guise she may appear, she always does good. As some remedies benefit us by their smell as well as by their taste and touch, so virtue even when concealed and at a distance sheds usefulness around. Indeed there are many who must of necessity cling to their high position, from which they cannot descend except by falling: but they testify that they are not raised to their high position, but chained to it: let them prepare, by means of justice and human clemency, with a kind and liberal hand, many means of assistance for a safe descent, on the hope of which they can rest more securely. Untamed ambition, Seneca admonishes, stands in the way of meeting life on its own terms with calm consent acceptance that is the supreme prerequisite for tranquility of mind. Monteleone translated tranquillitas animi as, mental equilibrium. It also proves a fertile source of troubles if you take pains to conceal your feelings and never show yourself to any one undisguised, but, as many men do, live an artificial life, in order to impose upon others: for the constant watching of himself becomes a torment to a man, and he dreads being caught doing something at variance with his usual habits, and, indeed, we never can be at our ease if we imagine that everyone who looks at us is weighing our real value: for many things occur which strip people of their disguise, however reluctantly they may part with it, and even if all this trouble about oneself is successful, still life is neither happy nor safe when one always has to wear a mask. Aurelius was an emperor, Seneca was an advisor to Nero and a poet, and Epictetus was the founder of a successful Hellenistic school. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book on Amazon from any link on here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. None of these things alter my principles, yet all of them disturb me. The Marginalian has a free Sunday digest of the week's most mind-broadening and heart-lifting reflections spanning art, science, poetry, philosophy, and other tendrils of our search for truth, beauty, meaning, and creative vitality. It is too late to school the mind to endurance of peril after peril has done. The superior position ho sophos (the sage) inhabits, of detachment from earthly (terrena) possibilities of future events of a detrimental nature, is the unifying theme of the dialogues. In this context, to Of Tranquility of Mind will be added engagements with On Leisure, a lesser-read text, and its seeming contradiction to what is recommended by Seneca in On the Brevity of Life . at the lower right increases or decreases the number of rows (but keeps the height of each row the same). The square at the upper left moves the This short book is full of practical wisdom on how to live, value your time, tranquility of mind and focus on . Output options are controlled by editing constants in the file and recompiling. I cut corners and break rules everywhere. De Tranquillitate Animi (The tranquility of the soul) is a Latin work of the philosopher in the form of a dialogue. His friends were sad at being about to lose so great a man: "Why," asked he, "are you sorrowful? Inside The Mind of The World's Most Interesting Stoic ". But why should it not? 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