A SENECAN PRAEMEDITATIO ......

The  wise  will  start  each  day  with  the  thought ...

Fortune gives us nothing which we can really own ."

"Nothing , whether public or private , is stable ; the destinies of men , no less than those of cities , are in a whirl ."

"Whatever structure has been reared by a long sequence of years , at the cost of great toil and through the great kindness of the gods , is scattered and dispersed in a single day . NO , he who has said ' a day' has granted too long a postponement to swift actions and misfortunes , an hour , an instant of time , suffices for the overthrow of empires and tyrants ."

"How often have cities in Asia , how often in Achaia , been laid low by a single shock of earthquake ? How many towns in Syria , how many in Macedonia , have been destroyed and swallowed up ?? How often has this kind of devastation laid Cyprus in ruins ."

"We live in the middle of things which have all been destined to die . Mortal have you been born , to mortals have you given birth ."

" Reckon on everything , expect everything ."

"The  wise  will  start  each  day  with  the  thought ...

The  same  could  naturally  be  conveyed  in  other  ways  and  for  other  times , our  actual  times , and  state  of  affairs .  We  do  not  know  what  will  happen  next ; we  must  expect  something  in  the  early  morning  every  morning .

We  should  undertake  what  Seneca  termed  a  praemeditatio , a  meditation  in  advance , on  all  the  sorrows  of  mind  and  bodies , the  sorrows  of  nations , of  peoples , of  wrong  doings  which  the  gods  have  and   may  subsequently  subject  us .




Seneca , a  first  century  Roman  philosopher ,  as to  me ,  my  usual  thanks  for  your  time , salamat.