Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy.
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Seneca | On Basic Principles (Part I)
In a letter known today as On the Usefulness of Basic Principles, Seneca wrote,
You keep asking me to explain without postponement a topic which I once remarked should be put off until the proper time, and to inform you by letter whether this department of philosophy which the Greeks call paraenetic, and we Romans call the “preceptorial,” is enough to give us perfect wisdom. Now I know that you will take it in good part if I refuse to do so. But I accept your request all the more willingly and refuse to let the common saying lose its point:
Don’t ask for what you’ll wish you hadn’t got.
For sometimes we seek with effort that which we should decline if offered voluntarily. Call that fickleness or call it pettishness—we must punish the habit by ready compliance. There are many things that we would have men think that we wish but that we really do not wish. A lecturer sometimes brings upon the platform a huge work of research, written in the tiniest hand and very closely folded; after reading off a large portion, he says: “I shall stop, if you wish;” and a shout arises: “Read on, read on!” from the lips of those who are anxious for the speaker to hold his peace then and there. We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods, while the gods either do not hearken or else take pity on us.
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