Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Do you think that this has happened to you alone, and do you wonder at it as if it were something new—that by so long a journeying and by so many variations of places you have not shaken off the sadness and heaviness of your mind? You must change your mind, not your sky. Although you cross the vast sea, although, as our Vergil says, “Lands and cities recede,” your vices will follow you, wherever you arrive.

​To someone complaining of this very same thing, Socrates said: “Why do you wonder that travel does you no good, when you carry yourself about? The same cause that drove you out presses upon you.” How can the novelty of lands help? How the knowledge of cities or places? That tossing about comes to nothing. Do you ask why that flight of yours does not help you? You flee with yourself. The burden of the mind must be laid down; before that, no place will please you.

​Think that your current condition is such as our Vergil depicts the prophetess when she is already excited and spurred on, and carrying much of a spirit within her that is not her own: “The prophetess raves, if only she might shake off the great god from her breast.” You go here and there to shake off the weight that sits upon you, which becomes more troublesome by the very tossing about, just as on a ship, undisturbed cargo presses less, while shifting loads, unevenly rolled together, more quickly sink the part on which they weigh down. Whatever you do, you do against yourself, and by the motion itself you harm yourself; for you are shaking up a sick man.

​But once you have removed that evil, every change of place will become pleasant; though you may be banished to the furthest lands, though you may be situated in any corner of a barbarian country, that seat, of whatever kind it is, will be hospitable to you. It matters more who you are when you arrive than where you arrive, and therefore we ought to bind our mind to no place. We must live with this conviction: “I was not born for one corner; my fatherland is this whole world.”

​If this were clear to you, you would not wonder that you are not helped at all by the varieties of regions into which you constantly migrate out of weariness of the former ones. For any first place would have pleased you, if you believed all of them to be yours. Now you are not traveling, but wandering and being driven, and changing place after place, although that which you seek—to live well—is situated in every place.

​Can anything become as turbulent as the forum? Even there, one may live quietly if it should be necessary. But if one were allowed to arrange oneself, I would flee far from even the sight and vicinity of the forum. For just as heavy places test even the strongest health, so too for a good mind that is not yet perfect and is still recovering, there are some things that are not very wholesome.

​I disagree with those who go into the midst of the waves and, approving of a turbulent life, struggle daily with great spirit against the difficulties of affairs. The wise man will endure those things, he will not choose them, and he will prefer to be at peace rather than in battle. It is of little help to have cast away one’s own vices if one must wrangle with those of others.

”Thirty tyrants,” someone says, “surrounded Socrates, and they could not break his spirit.” What does it matter how many masters there are? Servitude is one. He who has despised this is free, in no matter how great a crowd of rulers.

​It is time to stop, but only if I first pay the toll. “The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.” Epicurus seems to me to have said this excellently. For he who does not know that he is sinning does not wish to be corrected; you must catch yourself before you can amend yourself.

​Some people glory in their vices; do you think they think at all of a remedy, when they count their own evils in the place of virtues? Therefore, as much as you can, convict yourself, inquire into yourself; play the part first of an accuser, then of a judge, lastly of an intercessor. At times offend yourself. FAREWELL.