Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
Letter 13: On groundless fears
Letter 13 holds that the evils we dread outnumber the evils that reach us, and that most of our suffering comes from opinion rather than from fact.
Seneca’s rule is to examine whether the dreaded evil is present, certain, or merely rumoured, and not to be unhappy before the time.
From the letter
There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.
Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all.
For truth has its own definite boundaries, but that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork and the irresponsible license of a frightened mind.
We let ourselves drift with every breeze; we are frightened at uncertainties, just as if they were certain.
Quotes checked against this letter
Coverage
Our editions hold 30 letters of 124 in Richard Mott Gummere’s translation (1917–1925); 29 of them have a page here, those that Joseph Baillard’s French translation (1861) also contains.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+ — 2 passages of this letter, each with its reference; Marcus Aurelius is free in the app.