Key Arguments

• He issues a general warning against popular approval and fortune’s gifts: "‘Avoid,’ I cry, ‘whatever is approved of by the mob, and things that are the gift of chance."
• He urges suspicion of anything that comes easily from circumstance, comparing it to traps for animals: "Whenever circumstance brings some welcome thing your way, stop in suspicion and alarm: wild animals and fish alike are taken in by this or that inviting prospect."
• He insists these are not real presents but traps: "Do you look on them as presents given you by fortune? They are snares."
• He reverses the ownership relation: "we think these things are ours when in fact it is we who are caught."
• He depicts the path of such goods as leading to destruction: "That track leads to precipices; life on that giddy level ends in a fall."
• He develops a nautical metaphor: once prosperity carries us off course, we can neither halt nor perish with dignity, because fortune smashes the ship: "fortune does not just capsize the boat: she hurls it headlong on the rocks and dashes it to pieces."

Source Quotes

I am pointing out to others the right path, which I have recognized only late in life, when I am worn out with my wanderings. ‘Avoid,’ I cry, ‘whatever is approved of by the mob, and things that are the gift of chance. Whenever circumstance brings some welcome thing your way, stop in suspicion and alarm: wild animals and fish alike are taken in by this or that inviting prospect.

‘Avoid,’ I cry, ‘whatever is approved of by the mob, and things that are the gift of chance. Whenever circumstance brings some welcome thing your way, stop in suspicion and alarm: wild animals and fish alike are taken in by this or that inviting prospect. Do you look on them as presents given you by fortune?

Whenever circumstance brings some welcome thing your way, stop in suspicion and alarm: wild animals and fish alike are taken in by this or that inviting prospect. Do you look on them as presents given you by fortune? They are snares. Anyone among you who wishes to lead a secure life will do his very best to steer well wide of these baited bounties, which comprise yet another instance of the errors we miserable creatures fall into: we think these things are ours when in fact it is we who are caught.

They are snares. Anyone among you who wishes to lead a secure life will do his very best to steer well wide of these baited bounties, which comprise yet another instance of the errors we miserable creatures fall into: we think these things are ours when in fact it is we who are caught. That track leads to precipices; life on that giddy level ends in a fall.

Anyone among you who wishes to lead a secure life will do his very best to steer well wide of these baited bounties, which comprise yet another instance of the errors we miserable creatures fall into: we think these things are ours when in fact it is we who are caught. That track leads to precipices; life on that giddy level ends in a fall. Once, moreover, prosperity begins to carry us off course, we are no more capable even of bringing the ship to a standstill than of going down with the consolation that she has been held on her course, or of going down once and for all; fortune does not just capsize the boat: she hurls it headlong on the rocks and dashes it to pieces.

That track leads to precipices; life on that giddy level ends in a fall. Once, moreover, prosperity begins to carry us off course, we are no more capable even of bringing the ship to a standstill than of going down with the consolation that she has been held on her course, or of going down once and for all; fortune does not just capsize the boat: she hurls it headlong on the rocks and dashes it to pieces. Cling, therefore, to this sound and wholesome plan of life: indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health.

Key Concepts

• ‘Avoid,’ I cry, ‘whatever is approved of by the mob, and things that are the gift of chance.
• Whenever circumstance brings some welcome thing your way, stop in suspicion and alarm: wild animals and fish alike are taken in by this or that inviting prospect.
• Do you look on them as presents given you by fortune? They are snares.
• we think these things are ours when in fact it is we who are caught.
• That track leads to precipices; life on that giddy level ends in a fall.
• fortune does not just capsize the boat: she hurls it headlong on the rocks and dashes it to pieces.

Context

Still explaining what he is ‘crying’ to others and to posterity in Letter VIII, Seneca elaborates a general Stoic suspicion of popular values and fortune’s favors, using animal and shipwreck metaphors to portray them as dangerous traps.