Seneca

I've only ever read On the Shortness of Life and his letters to Lucilius I like his critical style. He spoke some very wise words. Now I wanna re-read him, thanks.

>>8601396
They all helped me deal with some tough moments in life, so I can never call him bad or useless. In fact, I don't think it's possible to read a stoic philosopher and not find at least something useful or wise. It remains a timeless school of thought, even with all it's tenants that are impossible to follow these days.

Seneca's letters are great to come back to every now and then. Reading one a day myself, just to make sure I don't let shit beyond my control bother me too much. I haven't read other stuff by him (yet), so I can't comment.

Seneca and Aurelius write in a very personal style. Aurelius makes notes for himself only and Seneca's letters are for a friend, so they are also intimate by default. It might be worth keeping that in mind. In other words: you might not find it all applicable to your own life.

Still worth reading, even if for that short feeling of being disburdened by his words.

>>8601396

Cicero was not a Stoic, please stop denigrating the memory of this great man by associating him with a pleb philosophy he was way too smart to subscribe to.

Cicero was an Academic Skeptic with some Stoic sympathies. He revered Plato more than he revered any of the Stoics.

Anyway Seneca is a way better read than Marcus Aurelius and I've never read Epictetus. Seneca was a master stylist.

>>8601396
Doesn't live up to the great Stoicus

He's the best and most essential stoic imo, given that the entire thing is named after him that's to be expected, but really, he actually managed to outlive my expectations

>>8603278

Do tell, what have you read by "the great Stoicus"?

>>8603291
Although not the most renown, The Reflections has to be my favorite work of his

>>8603265
Seneca was a piece of shit human being.
>Force a town in Britain to take an enormous loan for a construction project they don't want to do
>Charge exorbitant interest
>Demand the payment of the money in full out of the blue. It being a sum so large that even he, one of the richest people in Rome would have trouble to pay it
>Starts a revolt in Britain
>Claims money to him is a preferred indifferent

>Cicero was an Academic Skeptic with some Stoic sympathies
Cicero was an ecliptic Platonist.

>>8601396
He seems more pragmatic than others like Epictetus. I just finished Discourses, Handbook, & Fragments from Epictetus and read a lot of Seneca before, and it seem like Seneca's stuff (which is generally advice given directly to someone about something specific), is more practical.

Some people take this as being untrue to stoicism, and I think that argument has merits, but stoics also make a big point that you need to apply the philosophy, not just remember the arguments for the sake of memorization. So with that in mind, I feel like Seneca's works offer a way to go about that because that is what he is trying to teach you (or the person he's writing to) - how to adhere to the stoic ideas while in certain situations.

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Seneca et hoc genus omne

Das schreibt und schreibt sein unausstehlich weises Larifari,
Als gält es primum scribere,
Deinde philosophari.

Exactly this. Everyone praises Marcus Aurelius as if his Meditations had founded stoicism, but Seneca was his predecessor and his works explain Stoic principles a lot more in depth than Aurelius' Livejournal

Epictetus is best.