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No Seneca like the Present

College must have been a Conspiracy. We studied the Ancient Greeks, the Continental Philosophers, contemporary and postmodern. As a philosophy minor, I was under the impression that the Ancient Romans must have abstained from practicing it. They must have been warriors, or something. 

Fortunately, I was proven wrong. Stoicism was not only Rome’s philosophy gift to the world, it is also the most practical form of European philosophy. It’s a lot less dense than Kant’s Deontology. 

Seneca, for example, could pass as modern writer. His subject matter and simple use of language translates perfectly thousands of years later. 

Since time is limited this morning, here is a Seneca thought on it. 

[People] spend their lives in organizing their lives. They direct their purpose with an eye to a distant future but putting things off is the biggest waste of life… 

More to come. 

Update – some more Seneca quotes:

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

There is nothing that the busy man is less busy with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness. 

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

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