4.Epictetus, Discourses 3.7.19.
5.Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 6.2.
6.The Roman writer Cicero presents the ideas of Panaetius in the first two books of his work On Duties, an important work on Stoic ethics. The description of the four personae appears in Cicero, On Duties 1.107–115. In the discussion that follows here, I draw on both the ideas of Panaetius and Seneca, since Seneca expressed the same thoughts in his writings.
7.Seneca, Letters 11.6.
8.One of the most accurate psychological tests ever devised measures “the Big Five personality traits.” These are identified as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (and their opposites). Interestingly, when people are tested for these traits, it’s possible to predict where they fall on the political spectrum with a high degree of accuracy. This suggests that many or even most people identify with political orientations based on their personality traits rather than through a process of critical thinking.
9.Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 6.2.
10.Cicero, On Duties 1.110–111, reporting on the thought of Panaetius.
11.Seneca, Letters 20.2.
12.Seneca, Letters 37.5.
13.Seneca, Letters 120.21–22.
14.Seneca, Letters 47.21.
15.Seneca, Letters 20.3.
16.Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 17.1 and 17.2.
17.Seneca, Letters 16.3.
18.Seneca, Letters 75.4.
19.Seneca, Letters 64.7 and 64.9.
20.Seneca, Natural Questions 7.25.4.
21.Seneca, Letters 79.5.
22.For some criticisms of Zeno’s arguments, see Seneca, Letters 82.9 and 83.9. Seneca, On Benefits 1.4.1, describes Chrysippus’s acumen as being so finely pointed that, rather than being compelling, it only delivered “pinpricks.”
23.Seneca, Letters 80.1.
24.Seneca, Letters 33.11.
25.Seneca, Letters 81.1–2.
26.James Ker, introduction to On the Constancy of the Wise Person, in Seneca, Hardship and Happiness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 143.
27.Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Person 9.4–5 and Epictetus, Discourses 3.25.4.
28.See Seneca, On Leisure 2.2. As Diogenes Laertius put it, “The Stoics say that a wise person will take part in politics, if nothing hinders him . . . since, by doing so, he will restrain vice and promote virtue” (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 7.121). For an in-depth study of Seneca’s views on public service and leisure, see chapter 10, “The Philosopher on Political Participation,” in Mariam T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
29.Seneca, On Leisure 6.4–5.
30.Seneca, On Leisure 3.5.
31.Seneca, On Leisure 8.1.
32.Seneca, On Leisure 6.4.
33.Seneca, Letters 8.2–3.
34.Seneca, Letters 21.5.
35.Seneca, Letters 79.17.
CHAPTER 11: LIVING FULLY REGARDLESS OF DEATH
1.Seneca, Letters 12.1.
2.William B. Irvine, one of the first philosophers to have experimented with Stoicism as a modern way of life, has noted that a primary aim of “a philosophy of life” is to make sure that you have a good life and don’t “mislive.” One sign of having a good life is that, when you reach your final moments of being alive, you won’t feel regret that you wasted your life. See Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1–2.
3.Seneca, Letters 78.2.
4.Plato, Apology 30C–D.
5.On the trial of Socrates and his death, see Plato’s dialogues, The Apology (where Socrates defends himself while on trial), The Crito (where Socrates explains his unwillingness to escape prison), and The Phaedo (where Socrates drinks the hemlock, surrounded by his students). These dialogues can all be found in Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, translated by Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant (New York: Penguin, 1993).
6.Seneca, Letters 63.8.
7.Seneca, Letters 22.16.
8.Epictetus, Discourses 3.26.38.
9.Seneca, Letters 4.5.
10.Seneca, Letters 26.6.
11.Seneca, Letters 30.10–11.
12.Seneca, Letters 24.18. Marcus Aurelius also uses this argument in Meditations 8.58. It actually goes back to Socrates, who used the argument at his trial. See Plato, Apology 40C–D.
13.Seneca, Letters 54.4–5.
14.As Epicurus wrote, death is nothing to us, because “when we exist, death has not come, and when death has come, we don’t exist” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 10.125).
15.Seneca, Letters 92.24–25.
16.Seneca, Letters 77.20.
17.Seneca, Letters 93.4.
18.Seneca, Letters 12.4–5.
19.Seneca, Letters 101.13–14.
20.Seneca, Letters 101.15.
21.Seneca, Letters 58.34.
22.Seneca, Letters 58.32.
23.Seneca, Letters 58.35.
24.Text of Steve Jobs’s Commencement Address at Stanford University, June 12, 2005. https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/.
25.Seneca, Letters 101.7.
26.Seneca, Letters 12.9.
CHAPTER 12: GIVE GRIEF ITS DUE
1.Seneca, Consolation to Polybius 18.5. On the belief of the Greek Stoics that a sage would not feel grief: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 7.118.
2.Seneca, Letters 71.27.
3.Seneca’s Consolation to Marcia addresses Marcia’s extreme state of grief, lasting three years after the death of her son Metilius, and was probably written during the reign of Caligula (AD 37–41). Consolation to Helvia was written to Seneca’s mother to address her sorrow over Seneca’s banishment to the island of Corsica. Consolation to Polybius addresses Polybius’s grief over his brother’s death and was written while Seneca was in exile on Corsica (AD 41–49). Seneca’s Letter 63 is a letter of consolation written for Lucilius after the death of Flaccus, a friend of Lucilius’s. Seneca’s Letter 99 to Lucilius includes the text of a letter Seneca wrote to Maurullus after he lost an infant son. Seneca’s Letters were written in the period of AD 63–65.
4.Seneca, Letters 99.18–19.
5.Seneca, Letters 99.19.
6.Seneca, Letters 99.18 and 99.20.
7.Oxytocin is a hormone associated with bonding, love, sex, and stress reduction. Endorphins are opioids associated with pain reduction, stress reduction, and feelings of euphoria. It’s no wonder people often feel better and calmer after crying.