25.
Now what is the chief thing in virtue?
It is the quality of not needing a single day beyond the present, and of not reckoning up the days that are ours; in the slightest possible moment of time virtue completes an eternity of good.
These goods seem to us incredible and transcending man’s nature; for we measure its grandeur by the standard of our own weakness, and we call our vices by the name of virtue.
Furthermore, does it not seem just as incredible that any man in the midst of extreme suffering should say, “I am happy”?
And yet this utterance was heard in the very factory of pleasure, when Epicurus said: “To-day and one other day have been the happiest of all!” although in the one case he was tortured by strangury, and in the other by the incurable pain of an ulcerated stomach.
Book: Moral Letters Vol II
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the happy life
Location: Chapter 92, Section 25
Content:
25.
Now what is the chief thing in virtue?
It is the quality of not needing a single day beyond the present, and of not reckoning up the days that are ours; in the slightest possible moment of time virtue completes an eternity of good.
These goods seem to us incredible and transcending man’s nature; for we measure its grandeur by the standard of our own weakness, and we call our vices by the name of virtue.
Furthermore, does it not seem just as incredible that any man in the midst of extreme suffering should say, “I am happy”?
And yet this utterance was heard in the very factory of pleasure, when Epicurus said: “To-day and one other day have been the happiest of all!” although in the one case he was tortured by strangury, and in the other by the incurable pain of an ulcerated stomach.