Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Now you understand that you must be led out from those showy and bad occupations. But you ask how you can achieve this. Certain things are not pointed out except by one who is present. A doctor cannot choose the time for food or a bath through letters; the vein must be touched. There is an old proverb that the gladiator takes counsel in the arena; some hint from the adversary’s face, some movement of the hand, some inclination of the body itself warns the observer.

​What is accustomed to be done, what is proper, can be both commanded and written in general; such advice is given not only to those who are absent, but also to posterity. That other matter, when it ought to be done or in what manner, no one will advise from afar, since one must deliberate with the circumstances themselves.

​To watch the hurrying opportunity is the duty not only of one who is present, but of one who is watchful. Therefore look around for this; if you see it, seize it, and with all impetus, with all strength, make it your aim to strip yourself of those duties. And indeed, pay attention to what opinion I hold. I vote that you must depart either from that life of yours or from life itself. But I think this same thing, that you must go by a gentle path, so that what you have badly entangled, you may untie rather than tear apart, provided that if there is no other way of untying, you even tear it apart. No one is so timid as to prefer to hang forever than to fall once.

​Meanwhile, which is the first thing, do not hinder yourself. Be content with the affairs into which you have descended, or, what you prefer to appear, have fallen. There is no reason why you should strive for further things; otherwise you will lose your excuse and it will appear that you did not fall in. For those things which are accustomed to be said are false: “I could not do otherwise. What if I were unwilling? It was necessary.” It is necessary for no one to follow prosperity at a run; it is something, even if not to resist, to halt and not to press on when fortune bears you along.

​Will you be offended at all if I do not only come to counsel, but call in others, and indeed wiser ones than I myself am, to whom I am accustomed to refer, if I deliberate on anything? Read the letter of Epicurus pertaining to this matter, which is addressed to Idomeneus, whom he asks to flee as much as he can and to make haste, before some greater force intervenes and takes away the freedom of withdrawing.

​Yet the same writer adds that nothing should be attempted except when it can be attempted fitly and seasonably. But when that time, long watched for, has come, he says that one must leap out. He forbids one who is thinking about flight to doze, and hopes for a safe escape even from the most difficult situations, if we neither hasten before the time nor delay at the right time.

​I think now you also ask for the Stoic opinion. There is no reason why anyone should accuse them of rashness before you; they are more cautious than brave. Perhaps you expect that they will say these things to you: “It is shameful to yield to a burden. Struggle with the duty which you have once taken upon yourself. He is not a brave and energetic man who flees labor, unless his spirit grows by the very difficulty of things.”

​Those things will be said to you, if perseverance is worthwhile, if nothing unworthy of a good man will have to be done or suffered; otherwise, he will not wear himself out with dirty and insulting labor, nor will he be in affairs for the sake of affairs. He will not even do that which you think he will do, namely, that, entangled in ambitious affairs, he should always bear their tides. But when he sees that the heavy things in which he was wallowing are uncertain and hazardous, he will withdraw his foot, not turn his back, but will gradually retreat into safety.