Moral Letters to Lucilius

​I understand, Lucilius, that I am not only being improved but being transfigured. And I do not yet promise or hope for this, that nothing remains in me which ought to be changed. Why indeed should I not have many things which ought to be gathered together, to be thinned out, to be elevated? And this very thing is a proof of a mind transferred for the better, that it sees its own vices, which up to now it was ignorant of. Congratulation is offered to certain sick people when they themselves have sensed that they are sick.

​Therefore I should wish to share with you so sudden a change of myself; then I should have begun to have a surer confidence in our friendship, that true friendship which neither hope, nor fear, nor concern for one’s own utility tears asunder, that friendship with which men die, and for which they die.

​I will give you many who have lacked not a friend, but friendship. This cannot happen when an equal will draws minds into an association of desiring honorable things. Why indeed should it not be impossible? For they know that they have all things in common, and indeed, even more so adversity. You cannot conceive in your mind how much of importance I see each single day bringing to me. “ ​Send,” you say, “to us also those things which you have found to be so effective.” Indeed I desire to transfuse all things into you, and in this I rejoice to learn something, that I may teach. Nor will any thing delight me, granted it be excellent and salutary, which I am to know for myself alone. If wisdom should be given with this exception, that I keep it shut up and do not publish it, I should reject it. The possession of no good thing is pleasant without a companion.

​Therefore I will send you the books themselves, and lest you spend much effort while you pursue useful things here and there, I will add marks so that you may straightway approach those very things which I approve and admire. Yet both the living voice and common life will benefit you more than a written speech. You ought to come to the actual scene: first, because men believe their eyes more than their ears; second, because the way is long through precepts, but short and effective through examples.

​Cleanthes would not have reproduced Zeno if he had only listened to him; he took part in his life, thoroughly saw his secrets, and observed him, whether he lived according to his own formula. Plato and Aristotle and all the crowd of wise men destined to go in different directions drew more from the character than from the words of Socrates; not the school of Epicurus but his companionship made Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Polyaenus great men. Nor do I summon you for this only, that you may make progress, but that you may be of benefit; for we shall contribute very much to each other.

​Meanwhile, since I owe you a daily small wage, I will tell you what delighted me today in Hecato. “You ask,” he says, “what progress I have made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” He made great progress; he will never be alone. Know that this friend is a friend to everyone. FAREWELL.