“The wise man is joyful, happy and calm, unshaken, he lives on a plane with the gods.”

— Seneca the Younger, book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LIX: On Pleasure and Joy

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Seneca the Younger225

Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BC

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“Therefore the wise man is always happy.”
Atque cum perturbationes animi miseriam, sedationes autem vitam efficiant beatam, duplexque ratio perturbationis sit, quod aegritudo et metus in malis opinatis, in bonorum autem errore laetitia gestiens libidoque versetur, quae omnia cum consilio et ratione pugnent, his tu tam gravibus concitationibus tamque ipsis inter se dissentientibus atque distractis quem vacuum solutum liberum videris, hunc dubitabis beatum dicere? atqui sapiens semper ita adfectus est; semper igitur sapiens beatus est.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book V, chapter 15, section 43; translated by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)
Context: Now since perturbations of mind create misery, while quietness of mind makes life happy, and since there are two kinds of perturbations, grief and fear having their scope in imagined evils, inordinate joy and desire in mistaken notions of the good, all being repugnant to wise counsel and reason, will you hesitate to call him happy whom you see relieved, released, free from these excitements so oppressive, and so at variance and divided among themselves? Indeed one thus disposed is always happy. Therefore the wise man is always happy.