Hello and welcome.
My name is Silas Day and today we will be looking at some of the words and wisdom from someone named Sinica.
Lucius Aeneas Sinica,
More commonly just referred to as Sinica,
Was a Roman stoic philosopher,
Statesman,
And advisor.
He,
Along with several others,
Are the fathers of stoicism,
Which helped to continually lay the foundation for a Western mystical and pragmatic way of thinking pre-Christianity.
The stoics were some of my biggest influences,
Sinica being one of them,
As I was coming of age as a young boy.
In particular,
His two writings,
Letters from a Stoic and On the Shortness of Life,
Came to me at the age of 14,
Where they helped me to forge a more contemporary mind,
Heart,
And spirit.
I thought I would collect some of the phrases from these texts by Sinica and share them here with you in hopes that they provide to you a measure of hope,
Inspiration,
And wisdom which I found in them.
As with anything of this nature,
Take time to meditate on these sayings so that they might sink into your marrow and you know them fully in your own light and spirit.
True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future,
Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears,
But to rest satisfied with what we have,
Which is sufficient,
For he that is so wants nothing.
The greatest blessing of mankind are within us and within our reach.
A wise man is content with his lot,
Whatever it may be,
Without wishing for what he has not.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
All cruelty springs from weakness.
There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.
Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body.
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
We act like mortals in all that we fear and act like immortals in all that we desire.
Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms.
You'll be able to use them better when you're older.
If a man knows not to which port he sails,
No wind is favorable.
It is not that we have so little time,
But that we lose so much.
The life we receive is not short,
But we make it so.
We are not ill-provided,
But what we use we have used wastefully.
Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life.
Until we have begun to go without them,
We fail to realize how unnecessary many things are.
We've been using them not because we needed them,
But because we had them.
No man was ever wise by chance.
Associate with people who are likely to improve you.
He suffers more than necessary who suffers before it is necessary.
Only time can heal what reason cannot.
Putting things off is the biggest waste of life.
It snatches away each day as it comes and denies us the present by promising the future.
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy,
Which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.
You are arranging what lies in fortune's control and abandoning what lies in yours.
What are you looking at?
To what goal are you straining?
The whole future lies in uncertainty.
Live immediately.
Life is like a play.
It's not the length,
But the excellence of the acting that matters.
Remember,
The Sun also shines on the wicked.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
The bravest sight in the world is to see a great person struggling against adversity.
A gym cannot be polished without friction,
Nor a person perfected without trials.
They are most powerful who has mastery over themselves.
This is some of the wisdom of Seneca passed down now over 2,
000 years.
I highly recommend you checking out his writings if you found these thoughts helpful or interesting.
As well,
If you enjoyed this content,
Please let me know and I will happily make more as it is an area of great interest to me and it is a joy to share them with you.
I am Silas Day and have a wonderful day.
