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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 19

On the usefulness of basic principles

95:19

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.

19.

Mark the number of things—all to pass down a single throat—that luxury mixes together, after ravaging land and sea.

So many different dishes must surely disagree; they are bolted with difficulty and are digested with difficulty, each jostling against the other.

And no wonder, that diseases which result from ill-assorted food are variable and manifold; there must be an overflow when so many unnatural combinations are jumbled together.

Hence there are as many ways of being ill as there are of living.