On the usefulness of basic principles
95:30
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.
30.
We are mad, not only individually, but nationally.
We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?
There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty.
And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the usefulness of basic principles
Location: Chapter 95, Section 30
Content:
30.
We are mad, not only individually, but nationally.
We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?
There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty.
And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual.