Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Somehow or other, empty things perturb us more. For true things have their own limit; whatever comes from uncertainty is handed over to conjecture and the license of a frightened mind. Therefore, no fears are so ruinous, so irrevocable, as those of panic. For others are without reason, these are without mind.

​Therefore, let us inquire into the matter diligently. It is likely that some evil will happen in the future; yet it is not immediately true. How many unexpected things have come! How many expected things have appeared nowhere! Even if it is to happen, what does it help to run to meet one’s own pain? You will suffer soon enough when it comes; meanwhile, promise yourself better things.

​What gain will you make? Time. Many things will intervene by which a neighboring or even closely approaching danger may either stop, or cease, or pass to another’s head. A fire has opened a way for escape; a collapse has gently deposited some people; sometimes the sword has been recalled from the very neck; someone has survived his own executioner. Even bad fortune has its lightness. Perhaps it will be, perhaps it will not be; meanwhile it is not. Propose better things to yourself.

​Sometimes, with no signs appearing to foretell any evil, the mind fashions false images for itself; or it distorts some word of doubtful meaning for the worse, or imagines someone’s offense toward itself to be greater than it is, and thinks not how angry that person is, but how much is permitted to one who is angry. But there is no reason for life, no limit to miseries, if we fear as much as can be feared; here let prudence help, here with the strength of your mind reject even obvious fear. If not, repel vice with vice; temper fear with hope. There is nothing so certain among those things which are feared, that it is not more certain both that feared things subside and hoped-for things deceive.

​Therefore, weigh hope and fear, and whenever everything is uncertain, favor yourself; believe what you prefer. Even if fear has more votes, nevertheless incline rather toward this side and cease to perturb yourself, and constantly revolve this in your mind: that the greater part of mortals, although there is no evil present for them nor any certain to come, are in a turmoil and running about. For no one resists himself when he has begun to be impelled, nor does he reduce his fear to the truth. No one says, “The source is empty; an empty person has either fashioned or believed these things.” We give ourselves to the wind to be carried away.

​We dread doubtful things as certainties. We do not keep the measure of things. Instantly a hesitation turns into fear. I am ashamed to speak with you in such a somber tone, and to revive you with such mild remedies. Another might say, “Perhaps it will not come.” You say: “What of it, if it does come? We shall see which wins. Perhaps it comes for my benefit, and that death will ennoble my life.” Hemlock made Socrates great. Wrest from Cato the sword that was the assertor of his liberty, and you will have taken away a great part of his glory.

​I have been encouraging you for too long, since you need warning more than exhortation. We do not lead you in a direction different from your own nature; you were born for those things of which we speak. All the more, increase and adorn your own good.

​But now I shall make an end to the letter, if I impress upon it its seal, that is, if I commit some noble saying to be delivered to you. “Among other evils, folly has this also: it is always beginning to live.” Consider what that saying means, O Lucilius, best of men, and you will understand how disgraceful is the levity of men who daily lay new foundations of life, and begin new hopes even at their end.

​Look around you at individuals; you will meet old men who are preparing themselves most of all for ambition, for journeys, for business. But what is more disgraceful than an old man beginning to live? I would not add the author to this saying, unless it were rather obscure and not among the common sayings of Epicurus, which I have allowed myself both to praise and to adopt. FAREWELL.