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.
Seneca — On the Terrors of Death
In a letter known today as On the Terrors of Death, Seneca wrote,
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. Doubtless, you will derive enjoyment during the time when you are improving your mind and setting it at peace with itself, but quite different is the pleasure that comes from contemplation when one’s mind is so cleansed from every stain that it shines.
You remember, of course, what joy you felt when you laid aside the garments of boyhood and donned the man’s toga and were escorted to the forum; nevertheless, you may look for a still greater joy when you have laid aside the mind of boyhood and when wisdom has enrolled you among men. For it is not boyhood that still stays with us, but something worse—boyishness. And this condition is all the more serious because we possess the authority of old age, together with the follies of boyhood, yea, even the follies of infancy. Boys fear trifles, children fear shadows, we fear both.
All you need to do is to advance; you will thus understand that some things are less to be dreaded precisely because they inspire us with great fear. No evil is great, which is the last evil of all. Death arrives; it would be a thing to dread if it could remain with you. But death must either not come at all or else must come and pass away. […]
