Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
Letter 76: On learning wisdom in old age
Letter 76 reports that Seneca, in old age, has been attending a philosopher’s lectures for four days, and finds nothing foolish in learning as long as one lives.
The bulk of the letter proves again that the honourable is the only good, and that a man is to be valued by his soul, not by the trappings around him.
From the letter
Now what is more foolish than refusing to learn, simply because one has not been learning for a long time?
And the proverb suits the present case as well as any: “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
Money will come of its own accord; titles will be given to you; influence and authority will perhaps be thrust upon you; but virtue will not fall upon you by chance.
For there is but a single good,—namely, that which is honourable; in all those other things of which the general opinion approves, you will find no truth or certainty.
But when you wish to inquire into a man’s true worth, and to know what manner of man he is, look at him when he is naked; make him lay aside his inherited estate, his titles, and the other deceptions of fortune; let him even strip off his body.
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.