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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 10

On the intimations of our immortality

102:10

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

Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.

10.

Finally, tell us whether the good belongs to him who praises, or to him who is praised: if you say that the good belongs to him who is praised, you are on as foolish a quest as if you were to maintain that my neighbour’s good health is my own.

But to praise worthy men is an honourable action; thus the good is exclusively that of the man who does the praising, of the man who performs the action, and not of us, who are being praised.

And yet this was the question under discussion.”