17.
You need not, therefore, wonder that goods are equal, both those which are to be deliberately chosen, and those which circumstances have imposed.
For if you once adopt the view that they are unequal, deeming, for instance, a brave endurance of torture as among the lesser goods, you will be including it among the evils also; you will pronounce Socrates unhappy in his prison, Cato unhappy when he reopens his wounds with more courage than he showed in inflicting them, and Regulus the most ill-starred of all when he pays the penalty for keeping his word even with his enemies.
And yet no man, even the most effeminate person in the world, has ever dared to maintain such an opinion.
For though such persons deny that a man like Regulus is happy, yet for all that they also deny that he is wretched.
Book: Moral Letters Vol II
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the supreme good
Location: Chapter 71, Section 17
Content:
17.
You need not, therefore, wonder that goods are equal, both those which are to be deliberately chosen, and those which circumstances have imposed.
For if you once adopt the view that they are unequal, deeming, for instance, a brave endurance of torture as among the lesser goods, you will be including it among the evils also; you will pronounce Socrates unhappy in his prison, Cato unhappy when he reopens his wounds with more courage than he showed in inflicting them, and Regulus the most ill-starred of all when he pays the penalty for keeping his word even with his enemies.
And yet no man, even the most effeminate person in the world, has ever dared to maintain such an opinion.
For though such persons deny that a man like Regulus is happy, yet for all that they also deny that he is wretched.