Quote checked against the text
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” — attributed to Seneca
In substance, yes; in this wording, no. The idea is at Letters to Lucilius, 78, §2; Richard Mott Gummere’s 1917–1925 edition is quoted below, and the sentence as it circulates is not this translator’s.
In substance, yes. Letter 78, On the healing power of the mind, says in Gummere’s translation (1917–1925), second section: “And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.” The line that circulates, “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage”, is a smoother rendering of that sentence; the word “courage” is not there, “bravery” is.
The context is personal. Seneca is writing to a sick Lucilius about his own illness, years earlier, when he often entertained the impulse of ending his life and was kept back by the thought of his kind old father: he reflected not how bravely he had the power to die, but how little power his father had to bear the loss of him. Living was then the harder choice, and that is what the sentence means.
The letter is one of the 30 we hold in Gummere’s text, out of 124, and is read at Letter 78. Because the wording differs, the verdict stays at paraphrase: the idea is at that line, the popular sentence is not.
What we searched
Each fragment is searched, normalized, in every file of the editions below. The block is the search and its result, replayed at each build.
The wording was searched in the 30 letters of Gummere’s translation (1917–1925) we hold, out of 124, and in the ten dialogues we have from Stewart’s 1889 volume.
$ node tools/seo/grep-quote.mjs --lang en "act of courage" "even to live is" "act of bravery even to live"
George Long, 1862 — Meditations · 12 books, 487 chapters (1 file)
"act of courage" 0 hits
"even to live is" 0 hits
"act of bravery even to live" 0 hits
Richard Mott Gummere, 1917–1925 — Letters to Lucilius · 30 letters of 124 (30 files)
"act of courage" 0 hits
"even to live is" 0 hits
"act of bravery even to live" 1 hit
letter-78.txt l. 4 …it is an act of bravery even to live.
Aubrey Stewart, 1889 — Minor Dialogues · 10 dialogues, 6 aligned with Baillard chapter for chapter (10 files)
"act of courage" 0 hits
"even to live is" 0 hits
"act of bravery even to live" 0 hits
Elizabeth Carter, 1758 — Enchiridion · 52 chapters (Carter’s numbering) (1 file)
"act of courage" 0 hits
"even to live is" 0 hits
"act of bravery even to live" 0 hits
George Long, 1877 — Discourses (selection) and Enchiridion · a selection of the Discourses, without book or chapter numbers, plus the Enchiridion (1 file)
"act of courage" 0 hits
"even to live is" 0 hits
"act of bravery even to live" 0 hits
$ node tools/seo/grep-quote.mjs --lang fr "même vivre est un acte" "est un acte de courage"
Auguste Couat, 1904 — Pensées · 12 books, 487 chapters (IV, 19–20 and VII, 47–48 merged by the translator) (12 files)
"même vivre est un acte" 0 hits
"est un acte de courage" 0 hits
Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, 1876 — Pensées · 12 books, 487 chapters — second French edition, shown beside Couat (12 files)
"même vivre est un acte" 0 hits
"est un acte de courage" 0 hits
Joseph Baillard, 1861 — Lettres à Lucilius · 29 letters of 124 (29 files)
"même vivre est un acte" 0 hits
"est un acte de courage" 1 hit
lettre-78.txt l. 5 …qui souvent aussi est un acte de courage. Quelles furent…
Joseph Baillard, 1861 — Dialogues et traités · 11 works, 6 aligned with Stewart chapter for chapter (11 files)
"même vivre est un acte" 0 hits
"est un acte de courage" 0 hits
Jean-Marie Guyau, 1875 — Manuel · 53 chapters (modern numbering) (1 file)
"même vivre est un acte" 0 hits
"est un acte de courage" 0 hits
Victor Courdaveaux, 1862 — Entretiens · 9 chapters of the Discourses (I, 1 · I, 15 · I, 18 · I, 24 · I, 25 · II, 13 · II, 18 · III, 16 · III, 24) (9 files)
"même vivre est un acte" 0 hits
"est un acte de courage" 0 hitsThis sentence appears 2 times in the list of circulating quotes we collected on 2026-08-09.
What the text says
And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.
How to cite
The idea, not this wording, is at:
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 78, §2 (trans. Richard Mott Gummere, 1917–1925)
Other sentences checked
All sentences attributed to SenecaAll quote checks
Every passage in Stoïque carries its reference. The 171 passages of Seneca are in Stoic+, each with its locator.