On style as a mirror of character
114:12
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.
You may rather wonder that not only the effects of vices, but even vices themselves, meet with approval.
For it has ever been thus: no man’s ability has ever been approved without something being pardoned.
Show me any man, however famous; I can tell you what it was that his age forgave in him, and what it was that his age purposely overlooked.
I can show you many men whose vices have caused them no harm, and not a few who have been even helped by these vices.
Yes, I will show you persons of the highest reputation, set up as models for our admiration; and yet if you seek to correct their errors, you destroy them; for vices are so intertwined with virtues that they drag the virtues along with them.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On style as a mirror of character
Location: Chapter 114, Section 12
Content:
12.
You may rather wonder that not only the effects of vices, but even vices themselves, meet with approval.
For it has ever been thus: no man’s ability has ever been approved without something being pardoned.
Show me any man, however famous; I can tell you what it was that his age forgave in him, and what it was that his age purposely overlooked.
I can show you many men whose vices have caused them no harm, and not a few who have been even helped by these vices.
Yes, I will show you persons of the highest reputation, set up as models for our admiration; and yet if you seek to correct their errors, you destroy them; for vices are so intertwined with virtues that they drag the virtues along with them.