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Moral Letters Vol II

Seneca

§ Section 15

On the lesson to be drawn from the burning of Lyons

91:15

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The second volume of Seneca's moral letters to Lucilius. Each letter contains Seneca's advice and wisdom won from a life of Roman politics.

15.

Therefore let the mind be disciplined to understand and to endure its own lot, and let it have the knowledge that there is nothing which fortune does not dare—that she has the same jurisdiction over empires as over emperors, the same power over cities as over the citizens who dwell therein.

We must not cry out at any of these calamities.

Into such a world have we entered, and under such laws do we live.

If you like it, obey; if not, depart whithersoever you wish.

Cry out in anger if any unfair measures are taken with reference to you individually; but if this inevitable law is binding upon the highest and the lowest alike, be reconciled to fate, by which all things are dissolved.