Key Arguments

• He responds to the complaint 'my illness has taken me away from my duties and won’t allow me to achieve anything' by drawing a sharp distinction: 'It is your body, not your mind as well, that is in the grip of ill health.'
• He notes that while sickness 'may slow the feet of a runner and make the hands of a smith or cobbler less efficient,' an active mind 'may still give instruction and advice, listen and learn, inquire and remember.'
• He insists that meeting sickness sensibly is an achievement: 'if you meet sickness in a sensible manner, do you really think you are achieving nothing? You will be demonstrating that even if one cannot always beat it one can always bear an illness.'
• He asserts that 'There is room for heroism, I assure you, in bed as anywhere else,' and that 'War and the battle-front are not the only spheres in which proof is to be had of a spirited and fearless character: a person’s bravery is no less evident under the bed-clothes.'

Source Quotes

Surely pain is something you will want to smile at after this. ‘But my illness has taken me away from my duties and won’t allow me to achieve anything.’ It is your body, not your mind as well, that is in the grip of ill health. Hence it may slow the feet of a runner and make the hands of a smith or cobbler less efficient, but if your mind is by habit of an active turn you may still give instruction and advice, listen and learn, inquire and remember.

It is your body, not your mind as well, that is in the grip of ill health. Hence it may slow the feet of a runner and make the hands of a smith or cobbler less efficient, but if your mind is by habit of an active turn you may still give instruction and advice, listen and learn, inquire and remember. Besides, if you meet sickness in a sensible manner, do you really think you are achieving nothing?

Hence it may slow the feet of a runner and make the hands of a smith or cobbler less efficient, but if your mind is by habit of an active turn you may still give instruction and advice, listen and learn, inquire and remember. Besides, if you meet sickness in a sensible manner, do you really think you are achieving nothing? You will be demonstrating that even if one cannot always beat it one can always bear an illness. There is room for heroism, I assure you, in bed as anywhere else.

You will be demonstrating that even if one cannot always beat it one can always bear an illness. There is room for heroism, I assure you, in bed as anywhere else. War and the battle-front are not the only spheres in which proof is to be had of a spirited and fearless character: a person’s bravery is no less evident under the bed-clothes.

There is room for heroism, I assure you, in bed as anywhere else. War and the battle-front are not the only spheres in which proof is to be had of a spirited and fearless character: a person’s bravery is no less evident under the bed-clothes. There is

Key Concepts

• ‘But my illness has taken me away from my duties and won’t allow me to achieve anything.’ It is your body, not your mind as well, that is in the grip of ill health.
• if your mind is by habit of an active turn you may still give instruction and advice, listen and learn, inquire and remember.
• if you meet sickness in a sensible manner, do you really think you are achieving nothing? You will be demonstrating that even if one cannot always beat it one can always bear an illness.
• There is room for heroism, I assure you, in bed as anywhere else.
• a person’s bravery is no less evident under the bed-clothes.

Context

Closing movement of the excerpt from Letter LXXVIII, where Seneca counters the idea that illness makes life pointless by redefining duties and heroism in terms of rational endurance and continued mental activity.