Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy.
By becoming a member, you’ll gain access to Sundays with Seneca, Letters to a Young Seeker, Reading & the Good Life, and our upcoming course — Wisdom is the Way: The Timeless Art of Leading a Life.
Seneca - On Self Control
In a letter known today as On Self Control, Seneca wrote,
The question has often been raised whether it is better to have moderate emotions or none at all. Philosophers of our school reject the emotions; the Peripatetics keep them in check. I, however, do not understand how any halfway disease can be either wholesome or helpful. Do not fear; I am not robbing you of any privileges which you are unwilling to lose! I shall be kindly and indulgent towards the objects for which you strive—those which you hold to be necessary to our existence, or useful, or pleasant; I shall simply strip away the vice. For after I have issued my prohibitions against the desires, I shall still allow you to wish that you may do the same things fearlessly and with greater accuracy of judgment and to feel even the pleasures more than before; and how can these pleasures help coming more readily to your call, if you are their lord rather than their slave!
