124 surviving letters between Lucilius Junior and Lucius Annaeus Seneca, spanning c. 63–65.
“Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.”
“Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future.”
“You have sent a letter to me through the hand of a "friend" of yours, as you call him.”
“Keep on as you have begun, and make all possible haste, so that you may have longer enjoyment of an improved mind, one that is at peace with itself.”
“I commend you and rejoice in the fact that you are persistent in your studies, and that, putting all else aside, you mak…”
“I feel, my dear Lucilius, that I am being not only reformed, but transformed.”
“Do you ask me what you should regard as especially to be avoided?”
“"Do you bid me," you say, "shun the throng, and withdraw from men, and be content with my own conscience?”
“You desire to know whether Epicurus is right when, in one of his letters, he rebukes those who hold that the wise man is…”
“Yes, I do not change my opinion: avoid the many, avoid the few, avoid even the individual.”
“Your friend and I have had a conversation.”
“Wherever I turn, I see evidences of my advancing years.”
“I know that you have plenty of spirit; for even before you began to equip yourself with maxims which were wholesome and …”
“I confess that we all have an inborn affection for our body; I confess that we are entrusted with its guardianship.”
“The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime.”
“It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the stud…”
“Cast away everything of that sort, if you are wise; nay, rather that you may be wise; strive toward a sound mind at top …”
“It is the month of December, and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat.”
“I leap for joy whenever I receive letters from you.”
“If you are in good health and if you think yourself worthy of becoming at last your own master, I am glad.”
“Do you conclude that you are having difficulties with those men about whom you wrote to me?”
“You understand by this time that you must withdraw yourself from those showy and depraved pursuits; but you still wish t…”
“Do you suppose that I shall write you how kindly the winter season has dealt with us, - a short season and a mild one, -…”
“You write me that you are anxious about the result of a lawsuit, with which an angry opponent is threatening you; and yo…”
“With regard to these two friends of ours, we must proceed along different lines; the faults of the one are to be correct…”
“I was just lately telling you that I was within sight of old age.”
“"What," say you, "are you giving me advice?”
“Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience?”
“You have been inquiring about our friend Marcellinus and you desire to know how he is getting along.”
“I have beheld Aufidius Bassus, that noble man, shattered in health and wrestling with his years.”
“Now I recognize my Lucilius!”
“I have been asking about you, and inquiring of everyone who comes from your part of the country, what you are doing, and…”
“You wish me to close these letters also, as I closed my former letters, with certain utterances taken from the chiefs of our school.”
“I grow in spirit and leap for joy and shake off my years and my blood runs warm again, whenever I understand, from your …”
“When I urge you so strongly to your studies, it is my own interest which I am consulting; I want your friendship , and i…”
“Encourage your friend to despise stout-heartedly those who upbraid him because he has sought the shade of retirement and…”
“You have promised to be a good man; you have enlisted under oath; that is the strongest chain which will hold you to a sound understanding.”
“You are right when you urge that we increase our mutual traffic in letters.”
“I shall indeed arrange for you, in careful order and narrow compass, the notes which you request.”
“I thank you for writing to me so often; for you are revealing your real self to me in the only way you can.”
“You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your e…”
“Has that friend of yours already made you believe that he is a good man?”
“Do you ask how the news reached me, and who informed me, that you were entertaining this idea, of which you had said nothing to a single soul?”
“You are again insisting to me that you are a nobody, and saying that nature in the first place, and fortune in the secon…”
“You complain that in your part of the world there is a scant supply of books.”
“I received the book of yours which you promised me.”
“I am glad to learn, through those who come from you, that you live on friendly terms with your slaves .”
“In answer to the letter which you wrote me while travelling, - a letter as long as the journey itself, - I shall reply later.”
“A man is indeed lazy and careless, my dear Lucilius, if he is reminded of a friend only by seeing some landscape which s…”
“I received your letter many months after you had posted it; accordingly, I thought it useless to ask the carrier what you were busied with.”
“Every man does the best he can, my dear Lucilius!”
“What is this force, Lucilius, that drags us in one direction when we are aiming in another, urging us on to the exact pl…”
“You can persuade me into almost anything now, for I was recently persuaded to travel by water.”
“My ill-liealth had allowed me a long furlough, when suddenly it resumed the attack.”
“I have just returned from a ride in my litter; and I am as weary as if I had walked the distance, instead of being seated.”
“Beshrew me if I think anything more requisite than silence for a man who secludes himself in order to study!”
“When it was time for me to return to Naples from Baiae, I easily persuaded myself that a storm was raging, that I might …”
“How scant of words our language is, nay,how poverty- stricken, I have not fully understood until today.”
“I received great pleasure from your letter; kindly allow me to use these words in their everyday meaning, without insisting upon their Stoic import.”
“I file a complaint, I enter a suit, I am angry.”
“Let us cease to desire that which we have been desiring.”
“We are deceived by those who would have us believe that a multitude of affairs blocks their pursuit of liberal studies ;…”
“I am grieved to hear that your friend Flaccus is dead, but I would not have you sorrow more than is fitting.”
“Yesterday you were with us.”
“I shared my time yesterday with ill health; it claimed for itself all the period before noon; in the afternoon, however, it yielded to me.”
“I HAVE just seen my former school-mate Claranus for the first time in many years.”
“If I may begin with a commonplace remark, spring is gradually diselosing itself; but though it is rounding into summer, …”
“I fall in with your plan; retire and conceal yourself in repose.”
“I do not like you to change your headquarters and scurry about from one place to another.”
“After a long space of time I have seen your beloved Pompeii.”
“You are continually referring special questions to me, forgetting that a vast stretch of sea sunders us.”
“The subject concerning which you question me was once clear to my mind, and required no thought, so thoroughly had I mastered it.”
“It seems to me erroneous to believe that those who have loyally dedicated themselves to philosophy are stubborn and rebe…”
“Your letter has given me pleasure, and has roused me from sluggishness.”
“You have been complaining that my letters to you are rather carelessly written.”
“You have been threatening me with your enmity, if I do not keep you informed about all my daily actions.”
“Suddenly there came into our view to-day the "Alexandrian" ships, - I mean those which are usually sent ahead to announc…”
“That you are frequently troubled by the snuffling of catarrh and by short attacks of fever which follow after long and c…”
“I have been awaiting a letter from you, that you might inform me what new matter was revealed to you during your trip ro…”
“To-day I have some free time, thanks not so much to self as to the games, which have attracted all the bores to the boxing- match.”
“You complain that you have met with an ungrateful person.”
“I have already ceased to be anxious about you.”
“You bid me give you an account of each separate day, and of the whole day too; so you must have a good opinion of me if …”
“The journeys to which you refer - journeys that shake the laziness out of my system - I hold to be profitable both for my health and for my studies.”
“I had been inclined to spare you, and had omitted any knotty problems that still remained undiscussed; I was satisfied t…”
“I am resting at the country-house which once belonged to Scipio Africanus himself; and I write to you after doing revere…”
“I was shipwrecked before I got aboard.”
“You have been wishing to know my views with regard to liberal studies.”
“It is a useful fact that you wish to know, one which is essential to him who hastens after wisdom - namely, the parts …”
“Who can doubt, my dear Lucilius, that life is the gift of the immortal gods, but that living well is the gift of philosophy?”
“Our friend Liberalis is now downcast; for he has just heard of the fire which has wiped out the colony of Lyons.”
“You and I will agree, I think, that outward things are sought for the satisfaction of the hody, that the hody is cherish…”
“WHILE reading the letter in which you were lamenting the death of the philosopher Metronax as if he might have, and inde…”
“T hat department of philosophy which supplies precepts appropriate to the individual case, instead of framing them for m…”
“Y ou keep asking me to explain without postponement a topic which I once remarked should be put off until the proper tim…”
“S pite of all do you still chafe and complain, not understanding that, in all the evils to which you refer, there is rea…”
“Y ou are mistaken, my dear Lucilius, if you think that luxury, neglect of good manners, and other vices of which each ma…”
“Y ou need never believe that anyone who depends upon happiness is happy!”
“I enclose a copy of the letter which I wrote to Marullus at the time when he had lost his little son and was reported to…”
“You write rne that you have read with the greatest eagerness the work by Fabianus Papirius entitled The Duties of a Citi…”
“E very day and every hour reveal to us what a nothing we are, and remind us with some fresh evidence that we have forgot…”
“J ust as a man is annoying when he rouses a dreamer of pleasant dreams (for he is spoiling a pleasure which may be unrea…”
“W hy are you looking about for troubles which may perhaps come your way, but which may indeed not come your way at all?”
“I have run off to my villa at Nomentum, for what purpose, do you suppose?”
“I shall now tell you certain things to wlich you should pay attention in order to live more safely.”
“M y tardiness in answering your letter was not due to press of business.”
“W here is that common-sense of yours?”
“T he topic about which you ask me is one of those where our only concern with knowledge is to have the knowledge.”
“Y ou expressed a wish to know whether a wise man can help a wise man.”
“F rom my villa at Nomentum I send you greeting and bid you keep a sound spirit within you - in other words, gain the ble…”
“Y ou have asked me to give you a Latin word for the Greek sophismata.”
“I am indeed anxious that your friend be moulded and trained, according t o your desire.”
“Y ou wish me to write to you my opinion concerning this question, which has been mooted by our school - whether justice,…”
“Y ou have been asking me why, during certain periods, a degenerate style of speech comes to the fore, and how it is that…”
“I wish, my dear Lucilius, that you would not be too particular with regard to words and their arrangement; I have greate…”
“T he question has often been raised whether it is better to have moderate emotions, or none at all.”
“Y ou will be fabricating much trouble for me, and you will be unconsciously embroiling me in a great discussion, and in …”
“Y ou have been demanding more frequent letters from me.”
“W henever I have made a discovery, I do not wait for you to cry "Shares!”
“Y our letter roamed, over several little problems, but finally dwelt upon this alone, asking for explanation: "How do we…”
“Y ou will bring suit against me, I feel sure, when I set forth for you to-day's little problem, with which we have already fumbled long enough.”
“T he day has already begun to lessen.”
“W earied with the discomfort rather than with the length of my journey, I have reached my Alban villa late at night, and…”
“Full many an ancient precept could I give, Didst thou not shrink, and feel it shame to learn Such lowly duties.”