Key Arguments

• Seneca frames his advice explicitly as 'rules to observe that will enable you to live in greater safety', treating social life as a field of potential mutual destruction requiring prudential strategy.
• He identifies the principal motives that 'goad man into destroying man' as 'hope, envy, hatred, fear and contempt', suggesting these passions in others are the main sources of danger.
• He advises that as long as you 'own nothing likely to arouse the greed or grasping instincts of others', and 'possess nothing out of the ordinary', you are safe from the destructive 'hopes of grasping characters', implying that visible, unusual possessions provoke predatory hope.
• He says one escapes envy by not 'obtruded yourself on other people’s notice', not 'flaunted your possessions', and having 'learnt to keep your satisfaction to yourself', indicating that low profile and inward contentment defuse envy.
• Hatred, he claims, either arises from giving deliberate offence—avoidable if 'refraining from deliberately provoking anyone'—or is 'quite uncalled for', in which case 'ordinary tact' is the main safeguard.
• Regarding fear, he states that 'a moderate fortune and an easy-going nature' ensure that you are not feared, recommending that others see you as someone whom it is 'not ... dangerous to offend' and with whom reconciliation is 'easy and dependable', thus reducing others’ felt need to pre-emptively strike.
• He notes that people have sometimes 'taken shelter behind' contempt, treating it as the least dangerous of the passions, since the person who merely despises you will 'trample' but 'passes on' and does not maintain 'an unremitting and persistent policy of injury'.

Source Quotes

Y , I’ll give you some rules to observe that will enable you to live in greater safety. You for your part I suggest should listen as carefully to the advice I give you as you would if I were advising you on how to look after your health at Ardea.

You for your part I suggest should listen as carefully to the advice I give you as you would if I were advising you on how to look after your health at Ardea. Now think of the things which goad man into destroying man: you’ll find that they are hope, envy, hatred, fear and contempt. Contempt is the least important of the lot, so much so that a number of men have actually taken shelter behind it for protection’s sake.

Even in battle the man on the ground is left alone, the fighting being with those still on their feet. Coming to hope, so long as you own nothing likely to arouse the greed or grasping instincts of others, so long as you possess nothing out of the ordinary (for people covet even the smallest things if they are rare or little known), you’ll have nothing to worry about from the hopes of grasping characters. Envy you’ll escape if you haven’t obtruded yourself on other people’s notice, if you haven’t flaunted your possessions, if you’ve learnt to keep your satisfaction to yourself.

Coming to hope, so long as you own nothing likely to arouse the greed or grasping instincts of others, so long as you possess nothing out of the ordinary (for people covet even the smallest things if they are rare or little known), you’ll have nothing to worry about from the hopes of grasping characters. Envy you’ll escape if you haven’t obtruded yourself on other people’s notice, if you haven’t flaunted your possessions, if you’ve learnt to keep your satisfaction to yourself. Hatred either comes from giving offence, and that you’ll avoid by refraining from deliberately provoking anyone, or is quite uncalled for: here your safeguard will be ordinary tact.

Envy you’ll escape if you haven’t obtruded yourself on other people’s notice, if you haven’t flaunted your possessions, if you’ve learnt to keep your satisfaction to yourself. Hatred either comes from giving offence, and that you’ll avoid by refraining from deliberately provoking anyone, or is quite uncalled for: here your safeguard will be ordinary tact. It is a kind of hatred that has been a source of danger to a lot of people; men have been hated without having any actual enemy.

It is a kind of hatred that has been a source of danger to a lot of people; men have been hated without having any actual enemy. As regards not being feared, a moderate fortune and an easy-going nature will secure you that. People should see that you’re not a person it is dangerous to offend: and with you a reconciliation should be both easy and dependable.

As regards not being feared, a moderate fortune and an easy-going nature will secure you that. People should see that you’re not a person it is dangerous to offend: and with you a reconciliation should be both easy and dependable. To be feared inside your own home, it may be added, is as much a source of trouble as being feared outside it – slave or free, there isn’t a man who hasn’t power enough to do you injury.

Key Concepts

• I’ll give you some rules to observe that will enable you to live in greater safety.
• Now think of the things which goad man into destroying man: you’ll find that they are hope, envy, hatred, fear and contempt.
• so long as you own nothing likely to arouse the greed or grasping instincts of others, so long as you possess nothing out of the ordinary (for people covet even the smallest things if they are rare or little known), you’ll have nothing to worry about from the hopes of grasping characters.
• Envy you’ll escape if you haven’t obtruded yourself on other people’s notice, if you haven’t flaunted your possessions, if you’ve learnt to keep your satisfaction to yourself.
• Hatred either comes from giving offence, and that you’ll avoid by refraining from deliberately provoking anyone, or is quite uncalled for: here your safeguard will be ordinary tact.
• As regards not being feared, a moderate fortune and an easy-going nature will secure you that.
• People should see that you’re not a person it is dangerous to offend: and with you a reconciliation should be both easy and dependable.

Context

Opening of Letter CV’s practical counsel, where Seneca offers Lucilius a set of prudential 'rules' for living more safely by preventing others’ destructive passions—hope, envy, hatred, fear, contempt—from being aroused against him.