"Let us not put anything off: let us settle our accounts with life each and every day. The biggest problem with our lives is that they are always unfinished, that some part of them is always being

"It is easy to escape from your job, dear Lucilius, if you have no regard for the rewards of the job. It is the rewards that hinder us and keep us at it. “What? Am I to abandon such great expectations?

"Tell me, then, shouldn’t everyone do things for his neighbor as well as for himself and thus make sure that his city has thriving families and that it is not a wasteland? Isn’t this how commonwealths

"One must not force nature but persuade her. And we will persuade her by fulfilling the necessary desires, and the natural ones too if they do not harm [us], but sharply rejecting the harmful ones".

It's easy to get the impression from Seneca's writings, that wisdom equals practical wisdom - that the goal of wisdom is simply to give us control over our passions and, thus, peace of mind. This is not

Copenhagen Courthouse

City lights in Copenhagen

"That which is short of perfection must necessarily be unsteady, at one time progressing, at another slipping or growing faint; and it will surely slip back unless it keeps struggling ahead; for if

"Be deaf to those who love you most of all; they pray for bad things with good intentions. And, if you would be happy, entreat the gods that none of their fond desires for you may be brought to pass.

Death of a prince

Sunset in Copenhagen

Bright light in Copenhagen

Dusk in Copenhagen