Seneca - On the Simple Life (Pt. I)

Perennial Meditations

Sundays with Seneca explores Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy. Each week, I share a selected reading from one of Seneca's letters in search of ancient lessons on the art of living.

In a letter known today as Some Arguments in Favor of the Simple Life, Seneca wrote,

“I was shipwrecked before I got aboard.” I shall not add how that happened, lest you may reckon this also as another of the Stoic paradoxes; and yet I shall, whenever you are willing to listen, nay, even though you be unwilling, prove to you that these words are by no means untrue, nor so surprising as one at first sight would think. Meantime, the journey showed me this: how much we possess that is unnecessary; and how easily we can make up our minds to do away with things whose loss, whenever it is necessary to part with them, we do not feel. […]

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