Key Arguments

• He proposes the ideal destination: 'How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honourable finally become, for you, the same.'
• He analyzes the two 'classes of things' that move us: 'We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means.'
• He draws the practical conclusion: 'It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter.'
• He calls for reversing our usual combat stance: 'Let us fight the battle the other way round – retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.'
• He illustrates this reversal with a mountain metaphor: descending (toward pleasures) is the easier 'downward' path where one must lean back (restrain oneself), while ascending (toward rugged virtue) requires leaning forward (throwing oneself into effort).

Source Quotes

They have the same power: they lure men away from country, parents, friends and moral values, creating expectations in them only to make sport out of the wretchedness of lives of degradation. How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honourable finally become, for you, the same. And we can achieve this if we realize that there are two classes of things attracting or repelling us.

And we can achieve this if we realize that there are two classes of things attracting or repelling us. We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter.

We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter. Let us fight the battle the other way round – retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.

It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter. Let us fight the battle the other way round – retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us. You know the difference, Lucilius, between the postures people adopt in climbing up and descending a mountain; those coming down a slope lean back, those moving steeply upwards lean forward, for to tilt one’s weight ahead of one when descending, and backwards when ascending, is to be in league with what one has to contend with.

You know the difference, Lucilius, between the postures people adopt in climbing up and descending a mountain; those coming down a slope lean back, those moving steeply upwards lean forward, for to tilt one’s weight ahead of one when descending, and backwards when ascending, is to be in league with what one has to contend with. The path that leads to pleasures is the downward one: the upward climb is the one that takes us to rugged and difficult ground. Here let us throw our bodies forward, in the other direction rein them back.

Key Concepts

• How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honourable finally become, for you, the same.
• We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means.
• It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter.
• Let us fight the battle the other way round – retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.
• The path that leads to pleasures is the downward one: the upward climb is the one that takes us to rugged and difficult ground.

Context

Transition in Letter CXXIII from warning about hedonistic voices to a positive Stoic program of reorienting desires and fears so that honour and pleasure converge.