On true and false riches
110:12
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.
But there is no reason why you should flatter yourself over-much if you despise gilded couches and jewelled furniture.
For what virtue lies in despising useless things?
The time to admire your own conduct is when you have come to despise the necessities.
You are doing no great thing if you can live without royal pomp, if you feel no craving for boars which weigh a thousand pounds, or for flamingo tongues, or for the other absurdities of a luxury that already wearies of game cooked whole, and chooses different bits from separate animals; I shall admire you only when you have learned to scorn even the common sort of bread, when you have made yourself believe that grass grows for the needs of men as well as of cattle, when you have found out that food from the treetop can fill the belly—into which we cram things of value as if it could keep what it has received.
We should satisfy our stomachs without being over-nice.
How does it matter what the stomach receives, since it must lose whatever it has received?
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On true and false riches
Location: Chapter 110, Section 12
Content:
12.
But there is no reason why you should flatter yourself over-much if you despise gilded couches and jewelled furniture.
For what virtue lies in despising useless things?
The time to admire your own conduct is when you have come to despise the necessities.
You are doing no great thing if you can live without royal pomp, if you feel no craving for boars which weigh a thousand pounds, or for flamingo tongues, or for the other absurdities of a luxury that already wearies of game cooked whole, and chooses different bits from separate animals; I shall admire you only when you have learned to scorn even the common sort of bread, when you have made yourself believe that grass grows for the needs of men as well as of cattle, when you have found out that food from the treetop can fill the belly—into which we cram things of value as if it could keep what it has received.
We should satisfy our stomachs without being over-nice.
How does it matter what the stomach receives, since it must lose whatever it has received?