Learnt......................................

     This sort of thing may be all right for the Greeks, but the kind of talk to which we would be better to turn our ears is this:  'No man's good by accident.  Virtue has to be learnt.  Pleasure is a poor and petty thing.  No value should be set on it:  it's something we share with dumb animals - the minutest, most insignificant creatures scutter after it.  Glory's an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather.  Poverty's no evil to anyone unless he kicks against it.  Death is not an evil.  What is it then?  The one law mankind has that is free of all discrimination.  Superstition is an idiotic heresy;  it fears those it should love; it dishonours those it worships.  For what difference does it make whether you deny the gods or bring them into disrepute?  These are things which should be learnt and not just learnt but learnt by heart.  Philosophy has no business to supply vice with excuses;  a sick man who is encouraged to live in a reckless manner by his doctor has not a hope of getting well.


-Seneca,  Letters from a Stoic,  Letter CXXIII