On style as a mirror of character
114:2
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.
2.
Exactly as each individual man’s actions seem to speak, so people’s style of speaking often reproduces the general character of the time, if the morale of the public has relaxed and has given itself over to effeminacy.
Wantonness in speech is proof of public luxury, if it is popular and fashionable, and not confined to one or two individual instances.
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 2
Content:
2.
Exactly as each individual man’s actions seem to speak, so people’s style of speaking often reproduces the general character of the time, if the morale of the public has relaxed and has given itself over to effeminacy.
Wantonness in speech is proof of public luxury, if it is popular and fashionable, and not confined to one or two individual instances.