On the intimations of our immortality
102:18
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.
18.
The retort comes: “But whose good is this renown, this praise rendered to a good man by good men?
Is it of the one praised, or of the one who praises?” Of both, I say.
It is my own good, in that I am praised, because I am naturally born to love all men, and I rejoice in having done good deeds and congratulate myself on having found men who express their ideas of my virtues with gratitude; that they are grateful, is a good to the many, but it is a good to me also.
For my spirit is so ordered that I can regard the good of other men as my own—in any case those of whose good I am myself the cause.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the intimations of our immortality
Location: Chapter 102, Section 18
Content:
18.
The retort comes: “But whose good is this renown, this praise rendered to a good man by good men?
Is it of the one praised, or of the one who praises?” Of both, I say.
It is my own good, in that I am praised, because I am naturally born to love all men, and I rejoice in having done good deeds and congratulate myself on having found men who express their ideas of my virtues with gratitude; that they are grateful, is a good to the many, but it is a good to me also.
For my spirit is so ordered that I can regard the good of other men as my own—in any case those of whose good I am myself the cause.