On the vanity of place-seeking
118:17
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.
17.
Some things, through development, put off their former shape and are altered into a new figure.
When the mind has for a long time developed some idea, and in the attempt to grasp its magnitude has become weary, that thing begins to be called “infinite.” And then this has become something far different from what it was when it seemed great but finite.
In the same way we have thought of something as difficult to divide; at the very end, as the task grows more and more hard, the thing is found to be “indivisible.” Similarly, from that which could scarcely or with difficulty be moved we have advanced on and on—until we reach the “immovable.” By the same reasoning a certain thing was according to nature; its greatness has altered it into some other peculiar quality and has rendered it a Good.
Farewell.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the vanity of place-seeking
Location: Chapter 118, Section 17
Content:
17.
Some things, through development, put off their former shape and are altered into a new figure.
When the mind has for a long time developed some idea, and in the attempt to grasp its magnitude has become weary, that thing begins to be called “infinite.” And then this has become something far different from what it was when it seemed great but finite.
In the same way we have thought of something as difficult to divide; at the very end, as the task grows more and more hard, the thing is found to be “indivisible.” Similarly, from that which could scarcely or with difficulty be moved we have advanced on and on—until we reach the “immovable.” By the same reasoning a certain thing was according to nature; its greatness has altered it into some other peculiar quality and has rendered it a Good.
Farewell.