Key Arguments

• He rejects both gaudiness and drabness in dress: "Our clothes should not be gaudy, yet they should not be dowdy either," advocating a moderate standard.
• He similarly rejects both ostentatious luxury and ostentatious poverty in tableware: "We should not keep silver plate with inlays of solid gold, but at the same time we should not imagine that doing without gold and silver is proof that we are leading the simple life," stressing that mere deprivation is not genuine simplicity.
• He appeals to the Stoic slogan of living according to nature and applies it to bodily treatment: "it is quite contrary to nature to torture one’s body, to reject simple standards of cleanliness and make a point of being dirty," so harsh asceticism violates nature.
• He criticizes extreme diets: "to adopt a diet that is not just plain but hideous and revolting" and states that "avoidance of familiar and inexpensive dishes betokens insanity," so deliberate rejection of normal, cheap foods is pathological.
• He draws an analogy: "In the same way as a craving for dainties is a token of extravagant living, avoidance of familiar and inexpensive dishes betokens insanity," showing that extravagance and extreme avoidance are symmetrical vices.
• He explicitly distinguishes philosophy from penitential practices: "Philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance, and the simple way of life need not be a crude one," insisting that simplicity is compatible with basic comfort and cleanliness.

Source Quotes

Inwardly everything should be different but our outward face should conform with the crowd. Our clothes should not be gaudy, yet they should not be dowdy either. We should not keep silver plate with inlays of solid gold, but at the same time we should not imagine that doing without gold and silver is proof that we are leading the simple life.

Our clothes should not be gaudy, yet they should not be dowdy either. We should not keep silver plate with inlays of solid gold, but at the same time we should not imagine that doing without gold and silver is proof that we are leading the simple life. Let our aim be a way of life not diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the mob.

We must watch that the means by which we hope to gain admiration do not earn ridicule and hostility. Our motto, as everyone knows, is to live in conformity with nature: it is quite contrary to nature to torture one’s body, to reject simple standards of cleanliness and make a point of being dirty, to adopt a diet that is not just plain but hideous and revolting. In the same way as a craving for dainties is a token of extravagant living, avoidance of familiar and inexpensive dishes betokens insanity.

Our motto, as everyone knows, is to live in conformity with nature: it is quite contrary to nature to torture one’s body, to reject simple standards of cleanliness and make a point of being dirty, to adopt a diet that is not just plain but hideous and revolting. In the same way as a craving for dainties is a token of extravagant living, avoidance of familiar and inexpensive dishes betokens insanity. Philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance, and the simple way of life need not be a crude one.

In the same way as a craving for dainties is a token of extravagant living, avoidance of familiar and inexpensive dishes betokens insanity. Philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance, and the simple way of life need not be a crude one. The standard which I accept is this: one’s life should be a compromise between the ideal and the popular morality.

Key Concepts

• Our clothes should not be gaudy, yet they should not be dowdy either.
• We should not keep silver plate with inlays of solid gold, but at the same time we should not imagine that doing without gold and silver is proof that we are leading the simple life.
• Our motto, as everyone knows, is to live in conformity with nature: it is quite contrary to nature to torture one’s body, to reject simple standards of cleanliness and make a point of being dirty, to adopt a diet that is not just plain but hideous and revolting.
• In the same way as a craving for dainties is a token of extravagant living, avoidance of familiar and inexpensive dishes betokens insanity.
• Philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance, and the simple way of life need not be a crude one.

Context

Continuing in Letter V, Seneca specifies what an appropriate philosophical lifestyle looks like, arguing against both luxury and conspicuous, self-mortifying austerity as deviations from nature and from true philosophical simplicity.