Quotes and sayings of great people. Seneca Lucius Annaeus (the Younger) (c. 4 BC

Lucius Annaeus Seneca - born around 4 BC. in Corduba (Cordoba, Spain). Roman Stoic philosopher, poet and statesman. Nero's tutor and one of the leading exponents of Stoicism. Author of works - “On Anger”, “On the Fortitude of the Sage”, “Agamemnon”, “The Phoenicians”, “Hercules on Eta”, etc. He committed suicide in 65 AD.

Aphorisms, quotes, sayings, phrases Seneca Lucius Annaeus

Live means fight.
Accept the inevitable with dignity.
Valor craves danger.
Every task has its time.
Virtue cannot be unlearned.
Necessity breaks all laws.
Use your ears more than your tongue.
The value of virtue lies in itself.
Vices are learned even without teachers.
People themselves hold on to their slave share.
The best remedy for resentment is forgiveness.
Any evil is easy to nip in the bud.
It is stupid to die from fear of death.
A golden bridle will not turn a nag into a trotter.
By sparing criminals, they harm honest people.
There are no easy paths from earth to the stars.
He who has lived well with poverty is rich.
Money must be managed, not served.
You can rise to the sky from any nook and corner.
Small sadness speaks, great sadness is silent.
No one admits to being stingy or greedy.
Novelty often delights more than greatness.
He who knows what to rejoice at has reached the top.
Friendship ends where mistrust begins.
He who does not know how to be silent is not able to speak.
He teaches to speak well who teaches to do well.
Reproach from bad people is the same as praise.
Shame sometimes prohibits what the laws do not prohibit.
Before you say anything to others, say it to yourself.
The imperfect inevitably declines and perishes.
It is not difficult for a scientist to be unarrogant and unenvious.
He who has nothing to hope for has nothing to despair of.
To tell about your dream, you need to wake up.
Where the mind is powerless, time often helps.
A serious mistake often takes on the meaning of a crime.
It is not the one who has little who is poor, but the one who wants a lot.
Courage without prudence is only a special kind of cowardice.
Those who lived before us accomplished a lot, but completed nothing.
Much is not permissible for Caesar because everything is permissible to him.
Nothing hinders health more than frequently changing medications.
You yourself, covered with many ulcers, are looking out for other people's blisters.
A stomach content with little frees one from much.
For someone who is overcome by anger, it is better to delay making a decision.
A person can recognize his abilities only by applying them in practice.
Passions give the stupidest people intelligence and make the smartest people stupid.
A criminal can sometimes escape punishment, but not the fear of it.
No one is late to come to a place from which they can never return.
The more someone deserves contempt and ridicule, the more impudent is his tongue.
Shut up, don’t let reckless speech flow freely from your troubled soul.
For those who do not know which harbor to sail to, there is no favorable wind.
Ugliness is still the best means for a woman to preserve her virtue.
The education of people should begin with proverbs and should end with thoughts.
Equality of rights does not mean that everyone enjoys them, but that they are granted to everyone.
Live with people as if God is looking at you, talk to God as if people are listening to you.
Power over oneself is the highest power; enslaved by one's passions is the most terrible slavery.
Not to shed anyone's blood, to ensure peace to the whole world and peace to one's own age - this is the highest valor.
Learn first good morals, and then wisdom, for you cannot learn the latter without first lessons.
Before I was old, I cared about living well; in old age, I cared about dying well.
Nothing in the world deserves such respect as a person who can courageously endure adversity.
Anyone who makes a decision without hearing both sides acts unfairly, even if the decision was fair.
There is nothing more uglier than an old man who has no other proof of the benefit of his long life than his age.
People's envy shows how unhappy they feel; their constant attention to other people's behavior - how bored they are.
You are indignant that there are ungrateful people in the world. Ask your conscience whether everyone who did you favors found you grateful.
We don’t get a short life, we make it that way; We are not poor in life, but we use it wastefully. Life is long if you use it skillfully.
If you take a closer look, it turns out that the largest part of many people’s lives is wasted on bad deeds, a considerable part on idleness, and the whole life as a whole is not spent on what is needed at all.
He lives who benefits many; He lives who is useful to himself. And whoever hides and becomes rigid in immobility, for him the house is like a coffin. You can at least inscribe his name on marble at the threshold: after all, they died before death.
He who does good to another does good to himself, not in the sense of consequences, but by the very act of doing good, since the consciousness of the good done in itself already gives great joy.
Every evil is somehow compensated. Less money means less worries. Less success means fewer envious people. Even in those cases when we are not in the mood for jokes, it is not the unpleasantness itself that depresses us, but the way we perceive it.
Let us enjoy our lot without resorting to comparisons - the one who is tormented by the sight of greater happiness will never be happy... When it occurs to you how many people are walking ahead of you, think how many of them are following behind.

Seneca short biography (c. 4 BC - 65 AD)

Seneca quotes.
Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus. Roman philosopher, politician, poet. Seneca was the ideologist of the Senate opposition to the despotic tendencies of the first Roman emperors. From 41 to 49 Seneca was in exile. After his return, Seneca the Younger raised the future Emperor Nero. He became one of the leaders of Roman politics. In the 60s Seneca the Younger lost influence and was removed from the court after an unsuccessful assassination attempt by Piso. By order of Nero, Seneca committed suicide.

As a philosopher, Seneca the Younger was an eclectic who combined Stoicism with elements of other teachings that affirmed the ideal image of a sage who overcame human passions, was spiritually independent and, by his example, inspired people to self-improvement. Works in prose: treatises “On Mercy”, “On Beneficence”, “Natural Historical Questions”, “On Providence”, “On Anger”, “On Peace of Spirit”, “On the Firmness of the Sage”, etc.

Collection "Letters to Lucilius". Poetic works: 9 tragedies based on mythological subjects. Subsequently, they had a decisive influence on the style of European tragedy of the Renaissance and classicism.

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Psychotherapy and Philosophy: Lucius Annaeus Seneca

" Back 16.01.2018 18:00

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC - 65 AD) - Roman philosopher and writer. Mentor, then advisor to Emperor Nero. He was subsequently accused of plotting against Nero and committed suicide. He was the most prominent representative of Roman Stoicism. Seneca expressed his views in “Moral Letters to Lucilius”, “Questions of Natural Science”, etc. He is also the author of nine tragedies. Seneca's philosophical works subsequently influenced the memoir-moralistic genre, and his tragedies influenced W. Shakespeare and the playwrights of French classicism. I wonder why his views have not found application in psychotherapy. When I met them, reading the Moral Letters to Lucilius, I was shocked and fascinated. I will now try to convey these feelings to you. I started to write a short summary, but noticed that I was simply rewriting the book. With difficulty I made abridgements in the hope that you will get his works and read them in full.

“Save the time that was previously taken and stolen from you. Some of our time is taken away by force, some is kidnapped, and some is wasted. But the most shameful thing of all is the loss of time due to our own negligence.

This is our trouble, that we see death ahead; and most of it is behind us, because how many years of life have passed, everything belongs to death. Don't miss an hour. Everything is foreign to us, only time is ours. It’s too late to be thrifty when there’s nothing left.” Compare with the provisions of existential analysis and Frankl’s logotherapy, which call people to action.

Seneca attaches great importance to calmness of spirit, sedentary life and slowness. “The first proof of peace of mind is the ability to live a settled life and remain with oneself. Isn’t reading many writers and a wide variety of books akin to wandering and restlessness? You need to stay for a long time with one or another of the great minds, feeding your soul with them, if you want to extract something that would remain in it. Those who spend their lives wandering end up with many hosts but no friends. Even the most useful things do not benefit the raid. And now you are not traveling, but wandering and rushing about, driven from place to place by the search for what is everywhere: after all, everywhere we are given the opportunity to live correctly.” The idea of self-sufficiency and the ability to live alone can then be traced in the ideas of A. Schopenhauer.

Seneca calls for moderation. “It is not the one who has little who is poor, but the one who wants to have more.”

Seneca's thoughts about death help relieve fears. “No evil is great if it is the last. Has death come to you? She would be terrible if she could stay with you, but she either won’t appear or will soon be behind. A quiet life is not for those who think too much about prolonging it. Most are torn between the fear of life and the torment of death; pathetic, they don’t want to live and don’t know how to die. Make your life enjoyable by leaving all worries about it. No good will bring joy to the owner if he is not ready in his soul to lose it, and most painlessly to lose something that it is impossible not to regret having lost * (emphasis added - M.L.).

This quote made a great impression on many patients. They immediately somehow calmed down. Some even began to use some things that they treasured and simply kept. It dawned on them that if, while trying to save a thing, they do not use it, they have already lost it. And if you are very worried about life, then you can already consider that you have lost it. “Dying and losing are equally inevitable. We can find help against these losses by storing what we have lost in memory. What we own can be taken away, what we owned cannot be taken away. Chance takes away a thing, but retains the fruits of its possession, which we ourselves lose... regretting what was taken away... We will consider it inevitable what can happen. If I become poor, it means I will be among the majority. I will be expelled and consider myself a native of those places. I will die? But this means that I won’t be able to get sick, I won’t be able to fall. Death either destroys us or sets us free. Meditate on death. We need to learn to think about death. He who has learned death has ceased to be a slave.”

And one more thing: “I try to make every day a semblance of a whole life. I don’t catch him as if he were the last, but I look at him as if, perhaps, he could be the last. I’m ready to leave and therefore I enjoy life because I don’t worry about how long I’ll live. Try not to do anything against your will! Whoever has the desire, there is no need for him. Unhappy is not the one who does according to orders, but the one who does against the desire. Let us teach our soul to want to do what circumstances require; and above all, think without sadness about our death.” And again, the ideas of Gestalt therapy about mental maturity are traced here. Representatives of this direction include those who adapt to circumstances and change (improve) themselves as mature individuals.

Seneca’s call for moderation is brilliant: “What nature requires is available and achievable, we sweat only for the sake of excess. And what we have enough of is at our fingertips. He who feels good in poverty is rich.” “Do not act like those who do not want to improve, but to be visible, and do not make anything conspicuous in your clothing and lifestyle. Let us be different from the inside, but from the outside we should not be different from people. Let anyone who enters our house marvel at us, and not at our dishes. Great is the man who uses clay utensils as if they were silver, but no less great is he who uses silver like clay. The one who cannot afford wealth is weak in spirit. Both hope and fear are inherent in an uncertain soul, troubled by expectations of the future. And the main reason for hope and fear is our inability to adapt to the present and the habit of sending our thoughts far ahead. We are tormented by both the future and the past. And no one is unhappy due to current reasons.” The ideas of Gestalt therapy and the principle of living “here and now” are visible to the naked eye. And again: “Whoever cares about the future will lose the present, which he could enjoy... Is there anything more pathetic and more stupid than being afraid in advance? What kind of madness is it to anticipate your own misfortune? Those who suffer earlier than necessary suffer more than necessary.”

Seneca called to engage in philosophy, his spiritual backbone. “If you are engaged in philosophy, this is good, because only in it is health, without it the soul is sick, and the body, no matter how much strength it has, is healthy, just like that of the insane and possessed (emphasis added. - M.L. .). So, first of all, take care of your real health. Exercising just to make your arms stronger, your shoulders wider, your sides stronger is a stupid activity and unworthy of an educated person. No matter how much fat you manage to accumulate and muscle gain, you still cannot compare in weight or body to a fattened bull. In addition, the burden of flesh, growing, oppresses the spirit and deprives it of mobility. Without studying wisdom, it is impossible to live not only happily, but even tolerably, for perfect wisdom makes life happy, and its beginnings make life bearable...

Philosophy forges and tempers the soul, subordinates life to order, governs actions, indicates what to do and what to abstain from, sits at the helm and guides the path of those driven by waves among the abyss. Without it there is no fear and confidence. If there is one good thing about philosophy, it is that it does not look at pedigree. Nobility of spirit is available to everyone. We are well-born enough for this... It is not the body that needs to be changed, but the soul! Even if you go beyond the wide seas, your vices will follow you wherever you go.” Socrates answered someone’s question the same way: “Is it strange that you have no benefit from traveling if you drag yourself everywhere?” No matter how much you drive around, everything will be in vain. You can't run away from yourself! You need to get rid of its burden from your soul, and before that you won’t like a single place.”

Seneca argues that one must live in accordance with the Laws of Nature: “If you are in accordance with nature in life, you will never be poor, and if you are in accordance with human opinion, you will never be rich. Nature desires little, human opinion desires infinitely much. Excess will only make you want more. Natural desires have a limit, generated by a false opinion - they don’t know where to stop, because everything false has no boundaries.” How this situation echoes the opinion of K. Horney that a neurotic person develops an “ideal self”, the obligations and demands of which know no bounds! And again: “Has nature, having given us such a small body, endowed us with an insatiable womb so that we overcome the greed of the largest and most voracious animals? Not at all! Nature is content with little! How much is given to nature? It is not our hunger that costs us dearly, but our vanity. We must classify those... who obey the stomach not as people, but as animals, and some not even as animals, but as dead people. The one who benefits many lives, the one who benefits himself lives.”

For one of my patients, these words served as the beginning of insight. Here is his written report.

“When I heard these words of Seneca, I suddenly realized that even when I eat alone, I kind of want to prove to others that I am no worse than them. I stopped chasing delicacies, going to parties less, taking care of myself more, and improving in my specialty. My food expenses have noticeably decreased, I even lost weight, which I had already given up hope for. My qualifications grew, I began to bring more benefits to others, and my income increased.”

Here is an excerpt that anticipates the ideas of Eric Berne's scenario analysis. “And now you want the same thing that your nurse or uncle or mother wished for you? Yes, the prayers of loved ones for us are the same as the prayers of enemies: after all, we grew up among parental curses. Let the gods hear our selfless request for themselves.

Seneca encourages you to take care of yourself. “There is goodness, and in it is the source and guarantee of a blissful life: relying on yourself. If I want to be amused by someone's stupidity, then I don't have to look far: I laugh at myself. Our trouble does not come from outside: it is within us, in our very womb. And deep-rooted vices are not hopeless for me. There is nothing that hard work can't overcome." Seneca, along with other ancient philosophers, believed that the most important achievement is to become your own friend. These ideas can be traced in Fromm in his work “Man for Himself.” In the book “I: Algorithm of Luck” I tried to substantiate the thesis: “If a person lives correctly (that is, taking into account his nature) for himself, then others will feel better.”

“Knowing your flaw is the first step to health,” Seneca quotes Epicurus and adds: “First you should expose yourself, then correct yourself... Therefore, as much as you can, expose yourself to clean water, look for evidence against yourself. First act as an accuser, then as a judge, and only at the end as an intercessor.” Compare this statement with the position of K. Horney, who considered one of the main tasks of the psychotherapist to introduce the patient to a strange stranger - himself. And after all, the main goal of all psychoanalytic treatment methods is the destruction of psychological defenses and the destruction of painful complexes that these defenses cover.

Seneca especially calls for the development of reason, for “there is no peaceful peace except what is given to us by reason... Joy is the lot of only the wise: after all, it is a certain elation of the soul, believing in its own and true benefits.

There is no rest for stupidity anywhere: fear awaits it from above and below, everything on the right and left plunges it into trembling, dangers chase after it and rush towards it; Everything is terrible for her, she is not ready for anything and is afraid even of help. And the sage is protected from attack by attention: even if poverty, even grief, even disgrace, even pain attack him, he will not retreat, but will boldly meet them halfway, pass through their ranks.

Stupidity holds us so stubbornly, firstly, because we resist it timidly and do not make our way to health with all our might; secondly, we have little faith in what wise men have found. None of us plunged into the depths... And what hinders us most is that we begin to like ourselves too quickly. As soon as we find those who call us people of goodness, reasonable and righteous, we agree with them. Moderate praise is not enough for us: we take everything for granted that shameless flattery ascribes to us...

I will teach you how to know that you have not yet become wise. The sage is full of joy, cheerful and unshakably serene: he lives on an equal footing with the gods. If you are not sad, if no hope excites your soul with anticipation of the future, if day and night the state of your spirit, cheerful and satisfied with yourself, is the same and unchanged, then you have achieved the highest good available to man. But if you are trying to get all sorts of pleasures from everywhere, then know that you are as far from wisdom as you are from joy. You dream of achieving them, but you are mistaken, hoping to come to them through wealth, through honors, in a word, looking for joy among continuous worries. Joy is a goal for everyone, but people don’t know where to find great and lasting joy. One seeks it in feasts, another in ambition, a third in mistresses, the other in liberal sciences and literature, which heals nothing. All of them are disappointed by deceptive and short-lived pleasures. So understand what wisdom gives: unchanging joy. This means that there is something to strive for wisdom for, because there is no sage without joy. Luxury lovers spend every night - as if it were their last - in imaginary joys. And the joy that is given to the gods and the rivals of the gods (sages) does not dry out. It would dry up if it were borrowed, but, not being someone else’s gift, it is not subject to someone else’s arbitrariness. What fortune does not give, it cannot take away.”

Here are some more thoughts that are in tune with the ideas of existential analysis and logotherapy, helping in the treatment of depressive neurosis that arises after the loss of loved ones.

“When you lose a friend, let your eyes not be dry and not stream: you can shed a tear, but you can’t cry.”

“We look for evidence of our melancholy in tears and do not submit to grief, but put it on display. No one grieves for himself! And in grief there is a share of vanity! “So,” you ask, “will I really forget my friend?” “You promise him a short memory if it passes away with sorrow!” Soon any occasion will smooth out the wrinkles on your forehead and make you laugh. As soon as you stop watching yourself, the mask of grief will fall away: you yourself guard your grief, but it escapes from custody and dries up the sooner the more acute it was. Try to make the memory of our lost ones joyful to us... <...> For me, thinking about dead friends is joyful and sweet. When I was with them, I knew that I would lose them, when I lost them, I know that they were with me. So let us enjoy the company of friends - after all, it is unknown how long it will be available to us... He who does not love them [friends] weeps most bitterly until he loses them! That’s why they grieve so uncontrollably because they are afraid that someone will doubt their love, and they are looking for late proof of their feelings.”

A surprisingly subtle observation. But Seneca is mistaken in believing that we cry for others. Grief for the deceased is sincere at the level of consciousness, but often, in fact, the death of a loved one is simply a convenient reason for unconscious psychological defense mechanisms to get rid of emotional stress and at the same time remain passive.

Clinical example.

For several years, the young woman went to her husband’s grave every day and sobbed bitterly. She lived with her husband for only 10 days. It looked, of course, very beautiful. But the analysis showed that during the days of her marriage she developed a pronounced aversion to intimate relationships. Tears and grief freed her from the need to arrange her personal life, because the bad experience scared her.

But let's return to Seneca.

“If we still have friends, then we treat them poorly and do not value them, since they cannot console us by replacing the one buried; if he was our only friend, then it is not fortune that is to blame for us, but ourselves: it took one from us, and we did not get the other. And then, whoever could not love more than one did not love one too much. You buried the one you loved, look for someone to love! It's better to make a new friend than to cry!

If reason does not stop sorrow, then time will put an end to it; however, for a reasonable person, weariness with grief is the most shameful cure for grief. So it’s better to leave grief yourself before it leaves you, and quickly stop doing what you cannot do for a long time.

The ancestors established one year of mourning for women - not “so that they would mourn for so long, but so that they would not mourn longer; for men there is no legal term, for any term is shameful for them.

Nothing becomes hateful so quickly as grief; the recent finds a comforter... the old causes ridicule. And not in vain: after all, it is either feigned or stupid...

What can happen every day can happen today. So let us remember that we will soon go to where those we mourn went. And maybe those whom we imagine have disappeared have simply moved on...<...> We are losing not friends, not children, but their bodies. The wise man is not depressed by the loss of children or friends: he endures their death with the same calmness with which he awaits his own, and just as he is not afraid of his own death, he does not grieve over the death of loved ones... for life, if there is no courage to die, is slavery. Are you afraid to die? Are you still alive now? Life is like a play: it doesn’t matter whether it’s long or short, but whether it’s well played.”

Excellent passages that are relevant for our time and do not need commentary! But Seneca emphasizes that the sage is also subject to unrest, he reacts to the events of life, “but remains in his conviction that all this is not evil, and it is not proper for a healthy spirit to lose heart for this. He will do everything that is needed boldly and quickly. The characteristic of fools is to do everything sluggishly and reluctantly, to send the body to one end, the soul to the other, and rush in all directions at once. Stupidity boasts of that for which it is despised; and even what she boasts about, she does reluctantly. And if she is afraid of some misfortune, then in anticipation of it she suffers as if it had already come, and illness brings her all the torment that she fears. A weak spirit trembles before misfortunes strike: it anticipates them and falls before its time.”

Seneca was preoccupied with health problems. All his ideas are imbued with a love of life, optimism and a call to action.

“We have no right to complain about life about one thing: it doesn’t hold anyone back. Human affairs are not so bad if every unfortunate person is unhappy due to his vice... Do you like life? Live! If you don’t like it, you can go back where you came from... Just as something compressed by force straightens out, so that which does not move forward returns to the beginning.” You can’t say that to a patient, it could lead to trouble, but you can quote this quote from Seneca.

Seneca worries primarily about the health of the spirit. “I will tell you how to recognize a healthy person: he is satisfied with himself, trusts himself, knows that neither all the prayers of mortals, nor those benefits that are given and which are forgotten, give anything for a blissful life. After all, everything that can be added to is imperfect, and everything that can be taken away from is impermanent; whoever needs eternal joy, let him rejoice only in his own.”

A very interesting idea. K. Horney also points out that a person can suffer from neurosis even if he has no symptoms.

Seneca also gives criteria for recovery. “The difference between someone who has achieved wisdom and someone who is moving towards it is the same as between someone who is healthy and someone who is recovering from a long and serious illness, who does not yet have health, but has relief from the illness. If he is not attentive, things will get worse and everything will start all over again. The body is given health for a while, but the soul is healed forever.” A thought that can be traced in all psychoanalytic concepts of neuroses: only personality correction can serve as a criterion for recovery.

The following passage can serve as an example of rational psychotherapy. “Good consolation becomes a healing drug; What lifts the spirit helps the body. Nothing strengthens the sick and helps him more than the love of friends; nothing drives away fear and anticipation of death. Despise death! For those who have escaped the fear of death, nothing saddens their soul.

In any illness, three things are difficult: fear of death, pain in the body and denial of pleasure. The fear of death is not of disease, but of nature. For many, the disease delayed death, and the fact that they found themselves dying served to save them (they were not drafted into the army during the war. - M.L.). You will die not because you are sick, but because you live. The same fate awaits those who have recovered: having been healed, you have left not death, but illness. The pain is also tolerable because it is intermittent. No one can suffer greatly and for a long time: loving nature arranged everything in such a way that it made the pain either bearable or short-lived. The pain... becoming too sharp, turns into dizziness and unconsciousness. This is how you can console yourself with unbearable pain, that you will certainly stop feeling it if at first you feel it too strongly. And for the ignorant, bodily torment is so painful because they are not used to being content with their soul and were too busy with the body. Therefore, a reasonable person separates the soul from the body and turns his thoughts to the best, divine, part of his being, and deals with the other, tearful and frail one only to the extent necessary. “But it’s hard to lose your usual pleasures, to refuse food, to endure hunger and thirst.” — Abstinence is difficult at first. Then desires fade away as that through which we desire becomes tired and weak. Over time, we cannot look at what we were previously greedy for, and the need itself dies. And doing without what you don’t want is not at all bitter.

The disease is not so difficult to endure, as long as you have despised its most terrible threat. So do not aggravate your misfortunes and do not burden yourself with complaints. The pain is light if opinion does not add anything to it. Everything depends on opinion: not only ambition looks back on it, but also the thirst for luxury and stinginess: our pain is consistent with opinion. Everyone is as unhappy as they believe themselves to be unhappy (read this phrase again. - M.L.) In my opinion, we need to discard all complaints about past pain... Even if it’s true, it’s all gone! What joy is it to relive the past torment again and be unhappy from previous experiences?

Seneca poses an interesting question. Modern psychotherapy answers this: “A person is sick because he has no meaning in life. The illness itself often becomes his only creative act. How can you refuse it? Seneca subtly notes: “It is sweet to talk about what was bitter... “No one was worse!” What torment and suffering I endured! Nobody really thought that I would get up. How many times have my family mourned me, how many times have doctors given up on me... “How many sick people live with their illness, and how can they give it up when they immediately become nobody!”

And once again Seneca calls for living “here and now.” “...It is necessary to reduce both the fear of the future and the memory of past adversities: after all, the past ones are already over, and the future ones do not yet concern me.”

Here is another indication of how to behave during illness. “How it hurts me!” - “Doesn’t the fact that you behave like a woman hurt you?” - “But it’s hard!” - “So are we only brave enough to endure the easy? Which illness would you prefer - a long one or a shorter one, but more severe? If it is long, there are gaps in it, it gives time to recover and gives a lot of time, because it must certainly develop and then pass. A short and swift illness will do one of two things: either it will end itself, or it will finish you off. But what difference does it make whether she or you are not there? In both cases the pain will stop.”

Seneca gives advice on how to behave during illness. We use these tips as reminders for the patient. “It is also useful to direct thoughts to other objects, to distract them from pain. Think about how you acted honestly and bravely, repeat to yourself that there is a good side to everything. Then any brave man who has overcome pain will come to your aid: the one who continued to read when his swollen veins were cut out, and the one who did not stop laughing when the executioners, enraged by this laughter, tried on him one after another the instruments of cruelty. Is it really impossible for reason to conquer pain if laughter has conquered it? Of course, both laughter and reason overcome pain. Seneca did not know then that when a person thinks, morphine-like substances are released into the blood, and when he laughs, alcohol is released. They conquer pain. F. Nietzsche also writes about the same thing, who considered headaches to be one of the reasons for his wisdom. He created, did his job, but treated his headache like a barking dog, that is, he did not pay attention to it. And she, like a dog, gradually calmed down. And Nietzsche did not know that during reflection, morphine-like substances were released into the blood, but as a wise man he guessed that the pain came from the mind. “So wouldn’t you like to laugh at the pain after this?” - asks Seneca.

“But illness prevents you from doing anything and takes you away from all your responsibilities.” — “Ill health fetters the body, but not the soul. Let it entangle the legs of a runner, ossify the hands of a tailor or blacksmith. And you, if you are accustomed to the fact that your mind is active, you will teach, convince, listen, study, research, remember... you will prove that illness can be overcome or at least endured. And in the sick bed, believe me, there is a place for virtue... And under the blanket you can see that the person is courageous. You have a job to do - bravely fight the disease, and if it didn’t conquer you and didn’t achieve anything from you, you set a glorious example.” - “Truly there is something to be famous for if everyone watches how sick we are!” - “Look at yourself, praise yourself!” And this is a one-to-one proposition of existential analysis that life, even in suffering, is not without meaning.

And especially for the sick.

“There are two kinds of pleasures. The disease limits bodily pleasures, but does not take them away and even, if judged correctly, makes them sharper. It is more pleasant to drink when you feel thirsty, to eat when you are hungry; after fasting everything is consumed greedily. And in spiritual pleasures, which are both greater and more accurate, not a single doctor will deny a patient. He who is devoted to them and understands them, despises any gratification of the senses. “Oh, unfortunate patient!” - "Why?" - “Yes, because he... doesn’t cool his drink with ice... the cooks don’t fuss around... dragging dishes along with braziers. This is what the passion for luxury has come to... the kitchen is dragged along with the food. O unfortunate patient! He eats as much as he can digest; they won’t put a boar on the table in front of him to admire it and then send it back: after all, this meat is too cheap! They won't pile bird breasts on a tray for him. What harm did they do to you? You will eat like a sick person, or rather, like a healthy person.”

Accurately and subtly. And now, unfortunately, only during illness a person leads a healthy lifestyle. Seneca advocates the latter. People who lead a nocturnal lifestyle cause him particular anger. “Do people really know how to live who don’t know when to live? And they are still afraid of death when they buried themselves alive. Let them spend their nights drinking wine." After all, they do not feast, but pay their last debt to themselves. However, the dead are also remembered during the day. For a busy person, the day is never long. All vices fight against nature... For me they are the same as the dead: isn’t life with torches the same as a funeral, and a premature one at that? For a bad conscience the light is a burden. There is one direct path, many roundabout ones. The morals of people are the same: those who follow nature have almost the same morals - flexible and free; and the morals of the perverted are not alike.”

“... We will endure all this: decoctions and warm water. If only I could stop being afraid of death! To achieve this, we must know the limits of good and evil - then life will not be painful for us, and death will not be terrible.” And death is not terrible, according to Seneca, for those “who wander throughout the entire breadth of nature.” “Every age will seem short to those who measure it by empty and therefore endless pleasures.”

In his statements about happiness, Seneca emphasizes the role of the individual. “If you want to know what you weigh, put money, house, dignity aside... For those who are reputed to be happy, the joy is feigned, and sadness is painful, like a hidden abscess - painful all the more so since you cannot be openly unhappy and must be in the midst of sorrows, corroding the heart, play the lucky one... Never consider someone who depends on happiness lucky! If he rejoices at something that comes from outside, he chooses a fragile support: the joy that came will go away. Only when born from itself is reliable and strong, it grows and develops with us to the end, and everything else that the crowd admires is a blessing for the day. Everything involved in fortune is both fruitful and pleasant if the one who owns it also controls himself... From it there are only reasons for good and for evil... A bad soul turns everything for the worse, even what comes under the guise of the best... The soul must be treated: after all, from it us both thoughts and words, from her posture, facial expression, gait. When the soul is healthy and strong, then speech is powerful, courageous and fearless; if the soul has collapsed, it carries away everything in its fall... Our king is the soul; while she is unharmed, all others perform their duties and obediently obey; but as soon as she shakes a little, everything comes into oscillation. Our soul is either a king or a tyrant: a king, when he strives for what is honest, takes care of the health of the body entrusted to him, does not demand anything dirty or shameful from him; and when she has no control over herself, is greedy, spoiled, then she receives the hated name of a tyrant.”

Further, Seneca clearly describes the mechanism of development of the disease. “It is then that unbridled passions take possession of it [the soul], overcome it and at first rejoice, like the mob, which is not satisfied with the harmful distribution, and which tries to feel everything that it cannot swallow. But as the disease increasingly undermines the strength, and pleasures enter the flesh and blood, the one possessed by the disease is pleased with the sight of what excessive greed has made him unfit for, and compensates for his own pleasure in the spectacle of strangers. <...> The abundance of delightful things is not so gratifying to him as it is bitter that he cannot let all this luxury pass through his womb, that he cannot sleep with all the dissolute women and youths.”

Seneca also gives a recipe for treating the soul: the fight against vices. But he emphasizes that it is difficult to fight vices, because “there is no vice without justification... We defend our vices because we love them, and we prefer to excuse them rather than drive them out. “We don’t want to” is the reason; “We can’t” is just an excuse.” Seneca emphasizes that it is better to practice prevention than cure. “Every passion ignites itself and gains strength, growing (a vicious circle - M.L.), it is easier not to let it in than to drive it out. Nature mixed pleasure with necessary things, not so that we could covet it, but so that thanks to this addition, what we cannot live without would become more pleasant; and self-righteous pleasure appears - voluptuousness begins. So let us resist passions when entering... It’s better not to try to go forward if it’s so difficult to return.”

In the following passage, one can easily guess the ideas of Gestalt therapy, expressed much later, about introjects (“undigested” ideas) and ways of “digesting” them (the same analogy is used in the works of F. Perls). “We must imitate bees: divide what we read from different books, because it is preserved better separately, and then merge different samples and achieve unity of taste so that even if you can see where something was taken from, it should look different than where it was taken from.” . After all, nature does the same thing in our body without our efforts. The food eaten only burdens the stomach as long as it remains as it was; only having changed, it turns into strength and blood.<…> Let it be the same with everything that feeds our mind: it is impossible for what we have drawn to remain untouched. It needs to be digested, otherwise this food will be for memory, not for the mind. Let our soul do this: let it hide everything that helped, and let it show only what it has achieved in the end... Like in a choir, everything should merge into a single sound. Let the soul accommodate many arts, many instructions, many examples from different centuries, but let it all come into harmony. This can be achieved by constant attention - without doing anything other than on the advice of reason... And if you want to listen to him, he will tell you: “Immediately leave everything that you are chasing (honors, wealth, pleasures - M.L.) . Better take a step towards wisdom. They climb a rough road to the top of honors. If you want to rise to the height of wisdom, you will see everything that is revered as the highest at your feet, although your ascent will be gentle.”

Aphorisms and quotes

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (lat. Lucius Annaeus Seneca minor), Seneca the Younger or simply Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(lat. Lucius Annaeus Seneca minor), Seneca the Younger or simply Seneca (4 BC - 65, Rome) - Roman philosopher Stoic, poet and statesman. Nero's tutor and one of the leading exponents of Stoicism. His father and full namesake, better known as Seneca the Elder, was an outstanding rhetorician.

Tempori parce. Save your time.

Aestimo vitam unicum bonum. I consider life to be the only good thing. Nihil dat fortuna mancipio. Fate gives nothing as eternal property.

Imperfecta necesse est sublabantur aut succindant. (Everything) Imperfect inevitably declines or perishes.

Natura homo mundum et elegans animal est. Man by nature is a pure and graceful animal.

Nemo altero fragilior est: nemo in crastinum sui certior. Every person is as fragile as everyone else: no one is sure of their future.

Nunquam vir perfectus fortunae maledixit. Never has an ideal person scolded fate.

Aliena vitia in oculis habemus, a tergo nostra sunt. Other people's vices are before our eyes, but our own are behind our backs. Wed: Your sins behind you, strangers before you. We see a straw in someone else's eye, but we don't even notice a log in our own. You see someone else’s under the forest, but you don’t see your own right under your nose. Homines plus in alieno negotio videre quam in suo. People see more in someone else's business than in their own. Wed: I will solve someone else’s trouble with my hands, but I won’t apply my mind to my own.

Oculus domini fertilissimus in agro. What is most needed in the field is the master's eye.

Papulas observatis alienas obsiti plurimis ulceribus. You yourself, covered with many ulcers, are looking out for other people's blisters.

Aliquando et insanire jucundum est. It’s nice sometimes to fool around (do something stupid, go crazy).

Disce gaudere! Learn to have fun!

Ante senectutem curavi, ut bene viverem; in senectute, ut bene moriar. Before I was old, I cared about living well; in old age, I cared about dying well.

Primum pueritiam abscondimus, deinde adulescentiam. First we part with childhood, and then with youth.

Senectus insanabilis morbus est. Old age is an incurable disease.

Non datur e terris mollis ad astra via. There are no easy paths from earth to the stars.

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via. The path from earth to the stars is not smooth.

Sufficit ad id natura, quod poscit. Nature provides enough to satisfy natural needs.

Terram hanc puncti loco ponimus ad universa referentes. Comparing our earth with the Universe, we find that it is just a point.

Nemo patriam, quia magna est, amat, sed quia sua. They love their homeland not because it is great, but because it is their own.

Servitutis claustra perrumpere. Break the shackles of slavery.

Imperare sibi maximum imperium est. To command (control) oneself is the greatest power.

Potentissimus est qui se habit in potestate. The greatest power belongs to the one who has power over himself.

Nunquam credideris felicem ex felicitate suspensum. Never consider someone happy who depends on happy accidents.

Licet sapere sine pompa, sine invidia. You can be a scientist without arrogance and swagger (envy). It is not difficult for a scientist to be unarrogant and unenvious.

NULLius boni sine socio jucunda possessio est. Without a comrade, no happiness brings joy. Wed: Without a friend, joy is not joy.

Si vis amari, ama. If you want to be loved, love yourself.

Sumuntur a conversantibus mores. Whoever you hang out with, that's how you'll gain.

Necesse est multos timeat, quem multi timent. He who is feared by many is inevitably afraid of many.

Ad felicitatem pertinere. Strive for happiness.

Calamitas virtutis occasio. Adversity is an opportune time for virtue.

Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Small sadness is eloquent, great sadness is silent.

Dubia plus torquent mala. Unknown troubles are more disturbing.

Leve est miseriam ferre, perferre est grave. It's hard not to bear grief, but to bear it all the time.

Miser res sacra. The unfortunate is a holy being. The unfortunate one is sacred.

Omne bonum adjuvat habentem. Every good thing makes the one who possesses it happy.

Poscunt fidem secunda, at adversa exigunt. Happiness needs fidelity, but misfortune cannot do without it.

Res severa verum gaudium. True joy is a serious thing.

De cetero fortuna, ut volet, ordinet. As for the rest, let fate decide as it pleases.

Nusquam est qui ubique est. He who is everywhere is nowhere. Wed: If you chase two hares, you won’t catch either.

Saepe error ingens sceleris obtinuit locum. Often a huge mistake is also a crime.

Temporibus errare. Get the dates wrong.

Vitia sine praeceptore discuntur. Vices can be learned without a teacher (mentor).

Sera parsimonia in fundo est. It’s too late to be thrifty when everything is wasted (about belated events).

Ipsa se velocitas implicitat. Haste gets in the way of itself.

Veritas odit moras. Truth cannot be delayed (that is, it must be expressed without delay).

Longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla. The path of teaching is long, the path of examples is short and successful. Wed: It’s better to see once than to hear ten times.

Lege naturae compositus (est). Established by nature itself.

Naturalia non sunt turpia. What is natural is not shameful. Natural is not ugly.

Naturam mutare difficile est. It is difficult to change nature.

Cui (qui) cum paupertate bene convenit, dives est. He who has lived well with poverty is rich.

In divitiis inopes, quod genus egestatis gravissimum est. They are in need while possessing wealth, and this is the most severe form of poverty.

Nemo nascitur dives. Nobody is born rich.

Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est. It is not the one who has little who is poor, but the one who wants a lot.

Pecuniae imperare oportet, non servire. Money must be managed, not served.

Quantum hominum unus venter exercet! How many people are hampered by one person's gluttony! (About the Roman rich.)

Summae opes - inopia cupiditatum. The highest wealth is the absence of greed (whims).

Credere oculis amplius quam auribus. Trust your eyes more than your ears.

Homines amplius oculis, quam auribus credunt. People believe their eyes more than their ears. Wed: It’s better to see once than to hear ten times.

Injuriam qui facturus est, jam facit. He who intends to cause offense already causes it.

Multum interest utrum peccare aliquis nolit aut nesciat. It makes a big difference not to want or not to be able to sin.

Multum egerunt, qui ante nos fuerunt, sed non peregerunt. Those who lived before us accomplished a lot, but completed nothing.

Quam multi indigni luce sunt, et tamen dies oritur. How many are unworthy of light, and yet the day begins.

Quem mihi dabis, qui aliquod pretium temporiponat? Who can you tell me who would at least know how to value time?

Suum cuique rei tempus. Every task has its time.

Tria verba non potest jungere. He can’t put three words together.

Stultus stulta loquitur. A fool says stupid things. Wed: A fool has stupid speech.

Ira libidini subjecta est. Anger belongs to the category of unbridled passions. Anger is a weapon of unbridled passion.

Maximum remedium irae mora est. The best remedy for anger is slowing down.

Avida est periculi virtus. Valor craves danger.

Aditum nocendi perfido praestat fides. Trust placed in a treacherous person gives him the opportunity to do harm.

Nemo beneficia in calendario scribit. No one writes down good deeds on the calendar (that is, the good deeds are forgotten).

NULLum sine auctoramento malum est. There is no silver lining without compensation. Wed: Every cloud has a silver lining.

Omne malum ex urbe. All evil comes from the city.

Recte facti fecisse merges est. The reward for a good deed is its completion.

Multum sibi adicit virtus lacessita. Active (active) virtue achieves a lot.

Virtus suo aere censetur. The value of virtue lies in itself.

Animantia quaedam animum habent, quaedam tantum animam. Some living beings have a spirit, others only a soul (i.e., only breath).

Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius. An unhappy soul is filled with worries about the future.

Decet magnanimitas quemlibet mortalem. Greatness of soul should be a characteristic of all people.

Eo majora cupimus, quo majora venerunt. The more we are given, the more we desire.

Mortalibus mos est ex magmis majora cupiendi. People tend to want more when they have a lot.

Dolere frustra voluisse. Regret unfulfilled desires.

Omnia homini dum vivit speranda sunt. While a person is alive, he must hope for everything.

Appetit finis, ubi incrementa consumpta sunt. If growth stops, the end is near.

Mors dolorum omnium et solutio est et finis, ultra quam mala nostra non exeant. Death is the resolution and end of all sorrows, the limit beyond which our sorrows do not cross.

Nemo ad id sero venit, unde nunquam, cum semel venit, potuit reverti. No one is late to come to a place from which he can never return, once he has gotten there. Wed: It's never too late to die.

Post mortem nihil est. There is nothing after death.

Prima, quae vitam dedit, hora, carpsit. The very first hour that gave us life shortened it.

Quomodo fabula, sic vita: non, quam diu, sed quam bene acta sit, refert. Life is like a play in a theater: what matters is not how long it lasts, but how well it is played.

Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter. A stomach content with little frees one from much.

Vivere militare est. Live means fight.

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