Seneca is so strange to me. He feels warmer than either Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, but his warmth is very precise and deliberate. Manipulative even. This guy wasn’t much of a stoic, but he preached its wisdom, and preached it did he well, but how good could he possibly be, really?

Not that all of these letters could have ever been equally enlightening of course (if they were really letters), but some occasional lines and quotes are very good, so his rhetorical talents were put to good use. But still...if your preacher told you not to sin and he was a sinner, but his advice was still sound...what do you do? Do you pick a better master? Or do you treat the wisdom as your true master? Is the philosophy even good at that point?