writeing essay

Stoicism is the ability to endure pain and hardship while retaining the ability to contain ones emotions; Seneca at his death was a perfect example of a stoic

Here are some quotes from the death of seneca that show he was a stoic

For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come 

and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?   This is in example of how he lives. Seneca says in his writeing that the people who are "free of mind" are the people who can disregard anger and happiness. To not fall into desire or a fear. To show no emotion at all and to be free of mind, that is what a stoic is, And that is what he says in the passage.

Another quote from the death of seneca 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.' But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves" what he is talking about in this passage is what happens to someone when he does not escape and repress his feelings. that if he doesn’t he will struggle with no one but himself and his own feelings. Seneca knows this, because he has escaped from "himself" and looked back upon how he used to be before he escaped his feelings or became a stoic.

Seneca raises the Peripatetic objection that some passions are useful in helping to achieve certain ends. Aristotle, for example, believes that anger, by emboldening men, actually helps wars to be won. For Seneca though, a passion by its very nature is an impulse of the soul completely disobedient to reason, and therefore can never be of any practical use. Insofar as anger is useful in winning wars then it ceases to be anger, but is instead an emotion subordinate to reason. It is by the power of reason that wars are won, not by the power of the passions. He believes that  passions are but a poison of the soul with no reason of being there.

Later he changes his mind about the passions that they are but an opinion reasoned by the mind to be decided. Such as laughing at a joke. These emotions can be controlled and reasoned with.