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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 47

On the value of advice

94:47

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.

47.

He held that he himself became the best of brothers and the best of friends by virtue of this saying.

And if proverbs of such a kind, when welcomed intimately into the soul, can mould this very soul, why cannot the department of philosophy which consists of such proverbs possess equal influence?

Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by action.

If this be true, not only do the doctrines of wisdom help us but the precepts also, which check and banish our emotions by a sort of official decree.