sources:selections:seneca-epistles-13.4-5-a

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.

[[/content/source-selections|Source Selections]]\\
[[?do=nsrandompage|Take me to another random selection]]

----

“**4.** There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. [...] What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come. **5.** Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.”

—Seneca, //Epistles// 13.4-5 (tr. [[/content/source-selections#gummere_1917|Gummere, 1917]])