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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 12

On the corporeality of virtue

106:12

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.

12.

Wisdom is a plainer thing than that; nay, it is clearly better to use literature for the improvement of the mind, instead of wasting philosophy itself as we waste other efforts on superfluous things.

Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture-room.

Farewell.