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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 2

On the value of advice

94:2

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.

But Aristo the Stoic, on the contrary, believes the above-mentioned department to be of slight import—he holds that it does not sink into the mind, having in it nothing but old wives’ precepts, and that the greatest benefit is derived from the actual dogmas of philosophy and from the definition of the Supreme Good.

When a man has gained a complete understanding of this definition and has thoroughly learned it, he can frame for himself a precept directing what is to be done in a given case.