On nature as our best provider
119:12
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.
For as far as those persons are concerned, in whose minds bustling poverty has wrongly stolen the title of riches—these individuals have riches just as we say that we “have a fever,” when really the fever has us.
Conversely, we are accustomed to say: “A fever grips him.” And in the same way we should say: “Riches grip him.” There is therefore no advice—and of such advice no one can have too much—which I would rather give you than this: that you should measure all things by the demands of Nature; for these demands can be satisfied either without cost or else very cheaply.
Only, do not mix any vices with these demands.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On nature as our best provider
Location: Chapter 119, Section 12
Content:
12.
For as far as those persons are concerned, in whose minds bustling poverty has wrongly stolen the title of riches—these individuals have riches just as we say that we “have a fever,” when really the fever has us.
Conversely, we are accustomed to say: “A fever grips him.” And in the same way we should say: “Riches grip him.” There is therefore no advice—and of such advice no one can have too much—which I would rather give you than this: that you should measure all things by the demands of Nature; for these demands can be satisfied either without cost or else very cheaply.
Only, do not mix any vices with these demands.