On the fickleness of fortune
98:6
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.
6.
It is tragic for the soul to be apprehensive of the future and wretched in anticipation of wretchedness, consumed with an anxious desire that the objects which give pleasure may remain in its possession to the very end.
For such a soul will never be at rest; in waiting for the future it will lose the present blessings which it might enjoy.
And there is no difference between grief for something lost and the fear of losing it.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the fickleness of fortune
Location: Chapter 98, Section 6
Content:
6.
It is tragic for the soul to be apprehensive of the future and wretched in anticipation of wretchedness, consumed with an anxious desire that the objects which give pleasure may remain in its possession to the very end.
For such a soul will never be at rest; in waiting for the future it will lose the present blessings which it might enjoy.
And there is no difference between grief for something lost and the fear of losing it.