Moral Letters to Lucilius - Seneca

This is actually my second time going through this book and it is once again reinforcing the notion that each pass through a book only gets better. As you reread passages that hit you the first time, they hit you again but because time has elapsed since then your perspective on the underlying meaning changes. You begin to associate different stories with those passages and start to view chapters of your own life in a different way. All this affects what you get out of a book, and thus, it’s like finding new things in the same words as before.

I really like this book because it feels like your having somewhat of a personal conversation with Seneca. Since this is a collection of his letters to his friend, Lucilius, it reads as is if he is writing to you at times. And hearing the wisdom he has to share in this format, as if he is speaking to you from 2,000 years in the past, connects with you in a very unique way. He comes across as a mentor figure in some regards.

There are enough letters to keep you busy for quite a while, but I really enjoy what he writes about relationships, proper behavior, expectations, and broader philosophy. You can tell that even he is wrestling with some of his own words at times too.

This book is a great example of how you can find a source of profound knowledge and wisdom in something written far before our modern society. The fact that these lessons are still relevant today speaks to the kind of discourse and attention the people of ancient times gave to matters like philosophy. They were concerned much more with how to live a better life than any of the typical worthless worries we have today. They pondered what it meant to be good and did their best to convey those thoughts not only to their peers, but to posterity.

Though it can be a slow read at times, I definitely recommend checking out this book.

Need a recommendation?

Quotes

  • “I am glad to learn in order that I may teach. Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself… No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.”

  • “No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, who loves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurable or short.”

  • “Every man ought to make his life acceptable to others besides himself, but his death to himself alone.”

  • “Whoever expects punishment, receives it, but whoever deserves it, expects it. Where there is an evil conscience something may bring safety, but nothing can bring ease; for a man imagines that, even if he is not under arrest, he may soon be arrested.”

  • “No man is good by chance. Virtue is something which must be learned.”

  • “Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but no man’s power to live long.”

What’s on my shelves?

What’s on my radar?

  • Aesop's Fables

    Not going to lie, I may want a more casual read next to build some momentum. This might be the one.

  • Benjamin Franklin

    Ben Franklin has always been an interesting character to me. And I’ve heard great things about Walter Isaacson’s work.

  • Musashi

    I’ve had my eye on this for a long time. Who doesn’t love a 900 page novel on a legendary samurai?

  • On the Nature of the Gods, On Academics

    I’ve loved Cicero’s work so far. I’m pretty confident I will like this one as well.

  • The Odyssey

    It’s only fitting that after I read the Illiad that I go to the Odyssey. This would be another classic.