Letters to Lucilius
30 letters of 124 in Gummere, sections numbered within each letter
The letters to Lucilius are the last work of Seneca, written between 63 and 65 to a friend who governed Sicily: one hundred and twenty-four letters in twenty books, each one a short essay on a single point. The early letters end with a saying, often borrowed from Epicurus, which Seneca hands over as a debt paid; the later ones grow longer and treat a question through.
The English text here is Richard Mott Gummere’s, published in the Loeb series in three volumes between 1917 and 1925; thirty of the letters are on Wikisource, and those are the ones this site carries. Gummere gives each letter a title, On saving time, On groundless fears, and numbers its sections, so an extract is cited as Letter 13, §4. Each of the letters the app draws on has a page, Letter 1, Letter 13, Letter 47, with three to five extracts of Gummere’s text and the count of passages the app takes from it.
In the edition of Richard Mott Gummere, 1917–1925
Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
We let ourselves drift with every breeze; we are frightened at uncertainties, just as if they were certain.
If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.
Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides.
But this is the kernel of my advice: Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.
In Stoic+: 45 passages of this work, each with its reference.
The letters
30 letters of 124
- Letter 1 — On saving time
- Letter 2 — On discursiveness in reading
- Letter 3 — On true and false friendship
- Letter 5 — The philosopher’s mean
- Letter 7 — On crowds
- Letter 9 — On philosophy and friendship
- Letter 11 — On the blush of modesty
- Letter 12 — On old age
- Letter 13 — On groundless fears
- Letter 15 — On brawn and brains
- Letter 16 — On philosophy, the guide of life
- Letter 18 — On festivals and fasting
- Letter 23 — On the true joy which comes from philosophy
- Letter 26 — On old age and death
- Letter 28 — On travel as a cure for discontent
- Letter 33 — On the futility of learning maxims
- Letter 41 — On the god within us
- Letter 47 — On master and slave
- Letter 48 — On quibbling as unworthy of the philosopher
- Letter 49 — On the shortness of life
- Letter 61 — On meeting death cheerfully
- Letter 62 — On good company
- Letter 63 — On grief for lost friends
- Letter 76 — On learning wisdom in old age
- Letter 78 — On the healing power of the mind
- Letter 88 — On liberal and vocational studies
- Letter 90 — On the part played by philosophy in the progress of man
- Letter 91 — On the lesson to be drawn from the burning of Lyons
- Letter 107 — On obedience to the universal will
Quote check
- AttestedDid Seneca say we suffer more in imagination than reality?
- AttestedDid Seneca say “While we are postponing, life speeds by”?
- AttestedDid Seneca say to linger among a few master thinkers?
- ParaphraseDid Seneca say after friendship is formed you must trust?
- AttestedDid Seneca say the man who craves more is the poor one?
- ParaphraseDid Seneca say even to live is an act of courage?
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+: 45 passages of this work in the app, each with its reference.