/lit/ - Literature

This is now a Seneca thread.

>For this body of ours is a weight upon the soul and its penance; as the load presses down the soul is crushed and is in bondage, unless philosophy has come to its assistance and has bid it take fresh courage by contemplating the universe, and has turned it from things earthly to things divine. There it ihas its liberty, there it can roam abroad; meantime it escapes the custody in which it is bound, and renews its life in heaven. Just as skilled workmen, who have been engaged upon some delicate piece of work which wearies their eyes with straining, if the light whic htehy have is niggardly or uncertain, go forth into the open air and in some park devoted to the people's recreation delight their eyes in teh geenrous light of day; so the soul, imprisoned as it has been in this gloomy and darkened house, seeks the open sky whenever it can, and in the contemplation of the universe finds rest.

>The wise man, the seeker after wisdom, is bound closely, indeed, to his body, but he is an absentee as far as his better self is concerned, and he concentrates his thoughts upon lofty things. Bound, so to speak, to his oath of allegiance, he regards the period of his life as his term of service. He is so trained that he neither loves nor hates life; he endures a mortal lot, though he knows that an ampler lot is in store for him. [...] No, I am above such an existence; I was born to a greater destiny than to be a mere chattel of the body, and I regard this body as nothing but a chain which manacles my freedom. When it seems proper, I shall shall sever my connexion with it. To despise our bodies is sure freedom.

>[...] All things are made up of matter and of God; God controls matter, which encompasses him and follows him as its guide and leader. And that which creates, God, is more powerful and precious than matter, which is acted upon by God. God's place in the universe corresponds to the soul's relation to man. World-matter corresponds to our mortal body; therefore let the lower serve the higher. And what is death? It is either the end, or a process of change. I have no fear of ceasing to exist; it is the same as not having begun. Nor do I shrink from changing into another state, becase I shall, under no conditions, be as cramped as I am now. Farewell.