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diogenes_of_sinope:seneca_on_benefits [2012/07/20 18:55] – external edit 127.0.0.1diogenes_of_sinope:seneca_on_benefits [2014/01/14 23:19] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 It is not disgraceful to be outdone by such as these for it is not proved that I am the less brave if you pit me against an enemy that is invulnerable, nor that fire is the less able to burn if it falls upon a substance that flames cannot harm, nor that iron has lost its power of cutting if it attempts to cleave stone that is solid, impervious to a blow, and by its very nature invincible to hard instruments.  In regard to the grateful man I would answer you in the same way.  He is not disgracefully outdone in benefits if he has become indebted to those whose exalted station or exceeding merit blocks the approach to any benefits that might return to them.  Our parents almost always outdo us.  For, so long as we count them severe, so long as we fail to understand the benefits they give us, we have them with us.  When at last with age we have acquired some wisdom, and it begins to be evident that we ought to love them for the very things that kept us from loving them - their admonitions, their strictness, and their careful watch over our heedless youth - they are snatched from us. Few reach the age when they can reap some true reward from their children; the rest are aware of their sons by their burden.  Yet there is no disgrace in being outdone in benefits by a parent; how should there be, seeing that there is no disgrace in being outdone by anyone?  For there are some men to whom we are both equal and unequal - equal in intention, which is all that they require, unequal in fortune, and, if it is this that prevents anyone from repaying a favour, he has no need to blush on the ground that he has been outdone.  It is no disgrace to fail to attain provided you keep striving.  Very often it is necessary to ask for new benefits before we have returned older ones, and yet we do not fail to ask for them or feel any disgrace because we shall be indebted for them with no prospect of returning them, for, if we are prevented from showing ourselves most grateful, it will be the fault, not of ourselves, but of something from without that intervenes and deters us.  Yet in intention we shall not be outdone, nor shall we be disgraced if we are overpowered by things that are beyond our control. Alexander, king of the Macedonians, used to boast that no one had outdone him in benefits.  But there is no reason why, in the excess of his pride, he should look up to the Macedonians and the Greeks and the Carians and the Persians and the other nations who were enrolled in his army, nor suppose that it was their benefit that had bestowed upon him a kingdom that extended from a corner of Thrace to the shore of the unknown sea!  Socrates could have had the same reason to boast, and **Diogenes** the same reason, by whom, in any case, he was outdone.  Why was he not outdone on that day when, puffed up as he was beyond the limits of human pride, he saw someone to whom he could give nothing, from whom he could take nothing away? It is not disgraceful to be outdone by such as these for it is not proved that I am the less brave if you pit me against an enemy that is invulnerable, nor that fire is the less able to burn if it falls upon a substance that flames cannot harm, nor that iron has lost its power of cutting if it attempts to cleave stone that is solid, impervious to a blow, and by its very nature invincible to hard instruments.  In regard to the grateful man I would answer you in the same way.  He is not disgracefully outdone in benefits if he has become indebted to those whose exalted station or exceeding merit blocks the approach to any benefits that might return to them.  Our parents almost always outdo us.  For, so long as we count them severe, so long as we fail to understand the benefits they give us, we have them with us.  When at last with age we have acquired some wisdom, and it begins to be evident that we ought to love them for the very things that kept us from loving them - their admonitions, their strictness, and their careful watch over our heedless youth - they are snatched from us. Few reach the age when they can reap some true reward from their children; the rest are aware of their sons by their burden.  Yet there is no disgrace in being outdone in benefits by a parent; how should there be, seeing that there is no disgrace in being outdone by anyone?  For there are some men to whom we are both equal and unequal - equal in intention, which is all that they require, unequal in fortune, and, if it is this that prevents anyone from repaying a favour, he has no need to blush on the ground that he has been outdone.  It is no disgrace to fail to attain provided you keep striving.  Very often it is necessary to ask for new benefits before we have returned older ones, and yet we do not fail to ask for them or feel any disgrace because we shall be indebted for them with no prospect of returning them, for, if we are prevented from showing ourselves most grateful, it will be the fault, not of ourselves, but of something from without that intervenes and deters us.  Yet in intention we shall not be outdone, nor shall we be disgraced if we are overpowered by things that are beyond our control. Alexander, king of the Macedonians, used to boast that no one had outdone him in benefits.  But there is no reason why, in the excess of his pride, he should look up to the Macedonians and the Greeks and the Carians and the Persians and the other nations who were enrolled in his army, nor suppose that it was their benefit that had bestowed upon him a kingdom that extended from a corner of Thrace to the shore of the unknown sea!  Socrates could have had the same reason to boast, and **Diogenes** the same reason, by whom, in any case, he was outdone.  Why was he not outdone on that day when, puffed up as he was beyond the limits of human pride, he saw someone to whom he could give nothing, from whom he could take nothing away?
 \\ \\
-[[http://www.stoics.com/seneca_essays_book_3.html|Source]]</blockquote>+\\ 
 +Source: Lucius Annasus Seneca. Moral Essays. Translated by John W. Basore. The Loeb Classical Library. London: W. Heinemann,1928-1935. </blockquote>
  
  
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