Quotes from book
To Marcia

Seneca the Younger Original title Consolatio ad Marciam (Latin)

Seneca the Younger photo

“Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in which we lay before we were born. If anyone pities the dead, he ought also to pity those who have not been born. Death is neither a good nor a bad thing, for that alone which is something can be a good or a bad thing: but that which is nothing, and reduces all things to nothing, does not hand us over to either fortune, because good and bad require some material to work upon. Fortune cannot take ahold of that which Nature has let go, nor can a man be unhappy if he is nothing.”
Mors dolorum omnium exsolutio est et finis ultra quem mala nostra non exeunt, quae nos in illam tranquillitatem in qua antequam nasceremur iacuimus reponit. Si mortuorum aliquis miseretur, et non natorum misereatur. Mors nec bonum nec malum est; id enim potest aut bonum aut malum esse quod aliquid est; quod uero ipsum nihil est et omnia in nihilum redigit, nulli nos fortunae tradit. Mala enim bonaque circa aliquam uersantur materiam: non potest id fortuna tenere quod natura dimisit, nec potest miser esse qui nullus est.

From Ad Marciam De Consolatione (Of Consolation, To Marcia), cap. XIX, line 5
In L. Anneus Seneca: Minor Dialogues (1889), translated by Aubrey Stewart, George Bell and Sons (London), p. 190.
Other works

Similar authors

Seneca the Younger photo
Seneca the Younger 225
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BC
Marcus Tullius Cicero photo
Marcus Tullius Cicero 180
Roman philosopher and statesman
Zeno of Citium photo
Zeno of Citium 9
ancient Greek philosopher
Marcus Aurelius photo
Marcus Aurelius 400
Emperor of Ancient Rome
Julius Caesar photo
Julius Caesar 18
Roman politician and general
Epictetus photo
Epictetus 175
philosopher from Ancient Greece
Galén photo
Galén 11
Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher
Ennius photo
Ennius 23
Roman writer
Tacitus photo
Tacitus 42
Roman senator and historian
Pliny the Elder photo
Pliny the Elder 31
Roman military commander and writer