Seneca's Letters: Time, Anger and Adversity

Seneca's most enduring work is a collection of 124 Letters to Lucilius, written in his last years, which offer practical Stoic advice in a personal, vivid style. Rather than building a system, Seneca addressed everyday problems. In On the Shortness of Life, he argued that life is long enough if we use it well, but we waste it on busyness, ambition and other people's demands.

In On Anger, he analyzed anger as a temporary madness and offered techniques to prevent it, such as delaying a response and reviewing one's day each evening. He recommended imagining misfortunes in advance so they would not catch us unprepared. Seneca also wrote that enslaved people are human beings deserving respect, though he did not call for abolishing slavery. His letters show Roman Stoicism as a form of self-training, and they became favorites of Renaissance essayists such as Montaigne.