Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Seneca The YoungerRead
The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.
Interpretation
True peace comes from within, not from external circumstances or locations.
Seneca highlights the futility of seeking peace and tranquility through external changes and locations, suggesting that it is an internal state that must be cultivated regardless of one's surroundings. The constant searching for the perfect place to relax can lead to disappointment, as external factors will always pose distractions if one does not find inner serenity.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, I shared the quote to emphasize the importance of finding internal calm.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart.
Many people in their teens wonder about these big questions - what's the meaning of life, what are we doing here - then somewhere in their 20s, they seem to say, 'I'll just get married. I'll just have kids. I'll get back to that later.' But they never do. For me, it kept boiling.
Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason.
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
I too saw the wooden horse blocking the stars.
The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.
Naturally, for a person who finds his identity in something other than his full organism is less than half a man. He is cut off from complete participation in nature. Instead of being a body, he 'has' a body. Instead of living and loving he 'has' instincts for survival and copulation.
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