Seneca's 124 letters to Lucilius

One of the few philosophy books that I’ve read more than twice is Letters from a Stoic, the collection of 124 letters that Seneca wrote to Lucilius.

I keep going back to these letters because each time I learn something new and feel lighter. Each time I read it, it becomes better, and that to me is the definition of a truly great book.

It's hard to resist not highlighting every other line of this book. I've

Inner peace

Nothing is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

To be everywhere is to be nowhere.

The place one’s in doesn’t make any contribution to peace of mind: it’s the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself.

What’s the good of having silence throughout the neighborhood if one’s emotions are in turmoil?

Everything hangs on one’s thinking. A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly.

Nothing need arouse one’s irritation so long as one doesn’t make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

The nature of relationships

After a friendship is formed you must trust, but before that you must judge. Trusting everyone is as much a fault as trusting no one.

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with.

A person who is his own friend will never be alone.

If you wish to be loved, love.

The ending inevitably matches the beginning: a person who starts being friends with you because it pays him will similarly cease to be friends with you because it pays him to do so.

The man whom you should admire and imitate is the one who finds it a joy to live and in spite of that is not reluctant to die.

Wisely pick who you spend your time with, who you look up to and whose work you study. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving.

A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation. Acknowledging one’s failings is a sign of health.

On desire, wealth, and simplicity

It is not the man who has little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.

Natural desires are limited; those which spring from false opinions have nowhere to stop...

Rehearse poverty. Rehearse death.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are.

The poor lack much, the greedy everything.

He needs but little who desires but little.

Freedom cannot be won without sacrifice. If you set a high value on her, everything else must be valued at little.

Essential things are acquired with little bother; it is luxuries that call for toil and effort.

Nature demanded nothing hard from us, and nothing needs painful contriving to enable life to be kept going...

Acceptance of life’s challenges and fortune

The harmful consequences of inactivity are dissipated by activity.

Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.

Look for the best and prepare for the worst.

Don’t give in to adversity, never trust prosperity...

Nothing is durable, whether for an individual or for a society...

We should live as if we were in public view and think as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our heart.

At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is a whole.

In the ashes all men are leveled. We’re born unequal, we die equal.

No one has power over us when death is within our own power.

Things will get thrown at you and things will hit you. Life is no soft affair. The only safe harbor in this life’s tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring...