riches
idea · 2 works · 4 mentions · 10 anchored passages
wealth · money · gold
in the texts
Letters to Lucilius
Material wealth, examined throughout as a potential burden or a matter of indifference to the wise mind.
"He enjoys riches most who has least need of riches.
May one not despise riches when they are laid in one's lap?
"For many men the acquisition of riches has been not an end of their miseries, but a change of them.
On the Happy Life
Material wealth, treated as a Stoic 'indifferent' that is preferable but not identical with the good.
I deny that riches are a good;
For certain things, even though they be small in the sum of the matter and can be withdrawn without the ruin of the chief good, yet add something to the perpetual gladness that springs from virtue.
He will be strong though slight of body or though he have lost an eye, yet he will prefer to have bodily vigour—and this in such a way that he knows there is in himself something stronger than the body.