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Moral Letters Vol III

Seneca

§ Section 23

On the usefulness of basic principles

95:23

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.

23.

Nowadays, however, to what a stage have the evils of ill-health advanced!

This is the interest which we pay on pleasures which we have coveted beyond what is reasonable and right.

You need not wonder that diseases are beyond counting: count the cooks!

All intellectual interests are in abeyance; those who follow culture lecture to empty rooms, in out-of-the-way places.

The halls of the professor and the philosopher are deserted; but what a crowd there is in the cafés!

How many young fellows besiege the kitchens of their gluttonous friends!