Moral Letters to Lucilius

​You desire that some sayings of our leaders should be written down in these letters also, just as in the former ones. They were not occupied with flowery phrases; their entire context is manly. You should know that there is inequality where those things which stand out are conspicuous. A single tree is not an object of admiration where the whole forest has risen to the same height.

​Poems are stuffed with sayings of this kind, and histories are stuffed with them. Therefore, I do not wish you to think that they belong to Epicurus; they are common property and especially ours. But they are more noted in him, because they step in occasionally, because they are unexpected, and because it is surprising that something brave is said by a man who professed softness. Indeed, most people judge so. In my view, Epicurus is brave, even though he might wear long sleeves. Bravery, industry, and a mind ready for war fall as much upon Persians as upon those who are high-girt.

​Therefore, there is no reason for you to demand excerpts and repetitions; whatever is excerpted in others is a continuous whole in ours. We do not have, therefore, those eye-catchers, nor do we deceive the buyer who, when he enters, will find nothing except those things which were hung in front. We permit them to take models from wherever they wish.

​Suppose we wish to separate individual maxims from the crowd; to whom shall we assign them? To Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Panaetius, or Posidonius? We are not under a king; each person claims himself for himself. Among those people, whatever Hermarchus said, whatever Metrodorus said, is referred to one. Everything that anyone has spoken in that companionship was said under the leadership and auspices of one. We cannot, I say, even if we try, extract anything from such a great multitude of equal things. It belongs to a poor man to count his flock. Wherever you cast your eye, that will meet you which could stand out, unless it were read among its equals.

​Therefore, lay aside that hope that you can taste in a summary way the geniuses of the greatest men; you must inspect them as a whole, handle them as a whole. The matter is conducted and the work of genius is woven through its own outlines, from which nothing can be subtracted without ruin. Nor do I refuse to let you consider individual members, provided they are in the man himself. She is not beautiful whose leg or arm is praised, but she whose overall appearance has taken away admiration from individual parts.

​If, however, you demand it, I will not deal with you so beggarly, but it will be done with a full hand; there is a huge crowd of them lying around everywhere, they will have to be taken, not gathered. For they do not fall out, but flow. They are continuous and woven together. Nor do I doubt that they contribute much to those who are still unrefined and listening from the outside; for individual things, circumscribed and enclosed in the manner of poetry, settle in more easily.

​For this reason, we give children both maxims to learn by heart and these which the Greeks call chriae, because the childish mind, which does not yet grasp more, can comprehend them. It is shameful for a man of certain progress to hunt after flowery phrases, to prop himself up with the most well-known and fewest sayings, and to stand by memory; let him now lean upon himself. Let him speak those things, not just hold them. For it is shameful for an old man, or one looking forward to old age, to be wise from a notebook. “Zeno said this”; what about you? “Cleanthes said this”; what about you? How long will you move under another? Command and say something to be handed down to memory.

​Produce something from your own as well. Therefore, I think that all those who are never authors, always interpreters, hiding under another’s shadow, have nothing noble in them, never having dared to do at some time what they had long learned. They have exercised their memory on other people’s property. But it is one thing to remember, another to know. To remember is to preserve a thing committed to memory. But on the contrary, to know is both to make each thing one’s own, and not to hang on a model, and not to look back so often to the master.

”Zeno said this, Cleanthes this!” Let there be some difference between you and the book. How long will you learn? Now teach as well. “What is the reason why I should even hear what I can read?” “Much,” he says, “the living voice does.” Not indeed this one, which is lent to another’s words and performs the role of a reader.

​Add now that these people, who never come under their own guardianship, follow their predecessors first in that matter in which no one has not departed from a predecessor; secondly, they follow in that matter which is still being investigated. But nothing will ever be found if we are content with what has been found. Besides, he who follows another finds nothing, indeed, he does not even seek.

​What then? Shall I not go through the footsteps of my predecessors? I indeed shall use the old road, but if I find a closer and flatter one, I shall pave this. Those who set those things in motion before us are not our masters, but our guides. Truth lies open to all, it has not yet been occupied. Much of it has been left even for those to come. FAREWELL.