Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] I can tell, Lucilius, that I am not just being corrected — I am being remade. And I don't yet promise, or even hope, that nothing is left in me that needs changing. Of course I have plenty that ought to be pulled together, or trimmed down, or built up. In fact this very thing is proof of a mind that has moved toward the better: it sees faults in itself that it never noticed before. Some sick people get congratulated when they finally realize they are sick. [2] So I wish I could share this sudden change in myself with you. Then I would begin to trust our friendship more firmly — the real kind, which no hope, no fear, no concern for personal advantage can tear apart; the kind people keep until death, the kind they die for. [3] I can name you many men who lacked not a friend but friendship. That cannot happen when a matched will draws two minds into partnership in desiring what is honorable. Of course it can't: such men know they hold everything in common — their troubles most of all.
[4] You cannot imagine how much progress I see each single day bringing me. 'Send me too,' you say, 'these remedies you've found so effective.' Believe me, I want to pour everything I have into you, and part of my joy in learning anything is that I get to pass it on. Nothing will give me pleasure, however outstanding, however wholesome, if I am to be the only one who knows it. If wisdom were offered to me on this condition — that I keep it shut up inside and never speak it — I would refuse it: no good is enjoyable to possess without a partner. [5] So I will send you the books themselves, and to save you the labor of hunting through them for the useful parts, I will mark them, so you can turn at once to the passages I approve of and admire. Still, the living voice and the shared life will do you more good than any written argument. You need to come to where the thing itself is happening — first, because people trust their eyes more than their ears; second, because the road by way of precepts is long, while the road by way of examples is short and works. [6] Merely hearing Zeno lecture would never have made Cleanthes his likeness: he took part in his life, looked into his private conduct, and watched to see whether the man lived by his own rule. Plato and Aristotle and the whole crowd of philosophers who would later scatter in different directions drew less from Socrates' words than from the way the man lived. What made Metrodorus and Hermarchus and Polyaenus great was not Epicurus's classroom but sharing his roof. And I am not calling you here only so that you can improve, but so that you can be of use: we will each give the other a great deal.
[7] Meanwhile, since I owe you your little daily fee, I'll tell you what delighted me today in Hecato. 'You ask what progress I have made?' he says. 'I have begun to be a friend to myself.' Real progress: he will never be alone. Trust me, a man like that is a friend to everyone. Farewell.