The Book of Seneca 5 · Handed down at Rome, from his letters and essays
Much of what Seneca said accords with the axioms. Much of what he did did not. Chapter 5 is his own account of it. This book keeps what does not accord, and does not cover it over.
5.1Before you read my books, hear one thing from me.
5.2I told men to hold wealth lightly. I was enormously rich.
5.3I told men to keep away from power. I was the tutor of a tyrant.
5.4Some say on this account: then there is no need to listen to him.
5.5There is reason in that, but it is not the whole of it.
5.6What you should ask is not "did he do it" but "is what he said true".
5.7What I said is not made truer because I lived it, nor falser because I did not.
5.8I taught that man. He later killed his mother.
5.9I do not plead that I did not know. I knew, and I stayed.
5.10I stayed because I believed I could hold him back.
5.11I could not hold him back. I only wrote him fine words to say.
5.12This is the heaviest entry in the account of my life.
5.13I set it down here not to be forgiven.
5.14I set it down so that you may see: a man can be right and still not live up to it.