Letter 3, “On True and False Friendship,” begins with a small contradiction Seneca can’t resist pointing out: Lucilius sent a letter by way of a “friend” — then warned Seneca not to share everything in it with that very friend. You call him a friend, Seneca asks, but you don’t trust him? From this gentle […]

Letter 2, “On Discursiveness in Reading,” is the natural companion to Letter 1. Where the first letter warned against wasting time, this one warns against scattering attention. Seneca cautions Lucilius not to flit restlessly from book to book and author to author — because reading widely but shallowly leaves nothing behind. His advice is to […]

Letter 1, “On Saving Time,” is where the whole correspondence begins — and Seneca opens with the theme that haunts the entire collection: time is the only thing that is truly ours, and the only thing we throw away without a second thought. In a few short paragraphs he lays out a startling idea: we […]