Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, playwright and adviser to the emperor Nero, who eventually ordered him to take his own life. He is best known for the Letters to Lucilius and the essay On the Shortness of Life, in which he writes about time, mortality and his own failings plainly and without ornament. His work has stayed in circulation almost without interruption for two millennia.
About this theme: Courage
Aristotle placed courage precisely between cowardice and recklessness, settling a confusion that still recurs. Courage is not the absence of fear — that would be insensibility, which is not a virtue but a failure of judgement. Courage is acting despite fear, and it assumes the fear is present and warranted.
More by Seneca
More on Courage
- Fortune favors the bold.— Latin Proverb
- I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.— Louisa May Alcott
- No one knows what he can do till he tries.— Publilius Syrus
- Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding.— Immanuel Kant
- Courage is knowing what not to fear.— Plato