On real ethics as superior to syllogistic subtleties
117:26
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.
26. “Wisdom is a Good, but being wise is not a Good;” such talk results for us in the judgment that we are not wise, and in making a laughing-stock of this whole field of study—on the ground that it wastes its effort on useless things.
Suppose you knew that this question was also debated: whether future wisdom is a Good?
For, I beseech you, how could one doubt whether barns do not feel the weight of the harvest that is to come, and that boyhood does not have premonitions of approaching young manhood by any brawn and power?
The sick person, in the intervening period, is not helped by the health that is to come, any more than a runner or a wrestler is refreshed by the period of repose that will follow many months later.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On real ethics as superior to syllogistic subtleties
Location: Chapter 117, Section 26
Content:
26. “Wisdom is a Good, but being wise is not a Good;” such talk results for us in the judgment that we are not wise, and in making a laughing-stock of this whole field of study—on the ground that it wastes its effort on useless things.
Suppose you knew that this question was also debated: whether future wisdom is a Good?
For, I beseech you, how could one doubt whether barns do not feel the weight of the harvest that is to come, and that boyhood does not have premonitions of approaching young manhood by any brawn and power?
The sick person, in the intervening period, is not helped by the health that is to come, any more than a runner or a wrestler is refreshed by the period of repose that will follow many months later.