No man is able to
borrow or buy a sound mind; in fact, as it seems to me, even though sound minds
were for sale, they would not find buyers. Depraved minds, however, are bought
and sold every day.
Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium c. 65 AD
Nothing much changes in the ebb and flow of human futility does it? Life is far less harsh and far more comfortable than it was in Seneca's time, at least in the developed world, but we have similar ethical problems. A strikingly similar inability to resolve them too.
3 comments:
Go back to original sources is usually a good idea. I feel the old Romans and Greeks and Chinese felt they could write more or less the truth as they saw it knowing that only the brighter of their own class would ever read it. So they write of reality simply and clearly. Of the MSM I find the FT the nearest to this goal, it does at least have a clear(ish) objective.
But I wonder if he believed that the Sun went round the Earth and might have regarded those who disputed this as depraved?
Roger - I agree, maybe a limited audience fosters clarity.
Demetrius - probably not :-
"There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we we did not know things that are so plain to them" Seneca.
Post a Comment