Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Therefore let the mind be formed to the understanding and patience of its lot, and let it know that nothing is untried for fortune, that she has the same right against empires as against those who rule them, and can do the same against cities as against men. None of these things is to be felt indignant about . Into this world we have entered, in which we live under these laws. If it pleases you, obey; if it does not, exit by whatever way you wish. Feel indignant if anything unjust has been specially established against you; but if this necessity binds both the highest and the lowest, return into favor with fate, by which all things are dissolved.

​There is no reason for you to measure us by our tombs and these monuments which line the road in unequal sizes; ash equals everyone. We are born unequal, we die equal. I say the same of cities as of the inhabitants of cities: Ardea was captured as much as Rome. That founder of human law made no distinction among us by birth or by the fame of our names, except while we exist. But when we have come to the end of mortals, “Depart,” he says, “ambition! Let there be one and the same law for all things that press upon the earth.” To endure all things we are equal; no one is more fragile than another, no one more certain of himself for tomorrow.

​Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had begun to learn geometry—unhappy man, destined to learn how tiny the earth was, of which he had occupied a very small part! I say it thus: unhappy for this reason, that he ought to have understood that he was bearing a false cognomen. For who can be great in a tiny thing? Those things which were being taught were subtle and to be learned with diligent attention, not things to be perceived by a madman and one sending his thoughts across the ocean. “Teach me easy things,” he said. To whom his preceptor said, “These things are the same for everyone, equally difficult.”

​Think that the nature of things says this: “Those things about which you complain are the same for everyone. I can give easier things to no one, but whoever wishes will render those things easier for himself.” How? By equanimity. You must grieve, and thirst, and hunger, and grow old, if a longer stay among men happens to fall to you, and fall ill, and lose something, and perish.

​Yet there is no reason why you should believe those who clamor around you; none of these things is an evil, none intolerable or hard. Their fear comes from common consent. You fear death in the same way as reputation. But what is more foolish than a man fearing words? Our Demetrius is accustomed to say elegantly that the voices of the unlearned are in the same place for him as noises returned from the belly. “For what,” he says, “does it matter to me whether they sound from above or from below?”

​What great madness is it to fear lest you be defamed by the infamous? Just as you have dreaded reputation without cause, so also you dread those things which you would never fear unless reputation had ordered it. Would a good man suffer any loss when sprinkled with unjust rumors?

​Let this not harm even death among us; this too has a bad odor. None of those who accuse it has experienced it. Meanwhile, it is rashness to condemn what you do not know. But you do know this: how many people it is useful to, how many it frees from tortures, poverty, complaints, punishments, and weariness. We are in no one’s power, since death is in our power. FAREWELL.