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 the writings and Stoic philosophy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
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On the Fear of Death
In a letter known today as On the Natural Fear of Death, Seneca wrote,
Everything, if you add virtue, assumes a glory which it did not possess before. We speak of a sunny room, even though the same room is pitch-dark at night.
It is the day which fills it with light, and the night which steals the light away; thus it is with the things which we call indifferent and “middle,” like riches, strength, beauty, titles, kingship, and their opposites—death, exile, ill-health, pain, and all such evils, the fear of which upsets us to a greater or less extent; it is the wickedness or the virtue that bestows the name of good or evil. An object is not by its own essence either hot or cold; it is heated when thrown into a furnace, and chilled when dropped into water. Death is honorable when related to that which is honorable; by this I mean virtue and a soul that despises the worst hardships.
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