Seneca · c. 4 BCE – 65 CE
On Benefits 5.10 ¶1 — Seneca
Translation by Aubrey Stewart (1887)
Seneca, On Benefits 5.10 ¶1
A benefit means the affording of something useful, and the word “affording” implies other persons. Would not a man be thought mad if he said that he had sold something to himself, because selling means alienation, and the transferring of a thing and of one’s rights in that thing to another person? Yet giving, like selling anything, consists in making it pass away from you, handing over what you yourself once owned into the keeping of someone else.
Cite this passage
Seneca, On Benefits 5.10 ¶1, tr. Aubrey Stewart (1887)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-benefits/5.10.1
Seneca, Dialogues, tr. Aubrey Stewart (1887–1889). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesA favour means handing something useful over to someone else, just as selling means transferring a thing to another person, so you can no more give yourself a favour than sell something to yourself.
Older wording
- “alienation”
- — transferring ownership to another person
Themes and situations
- Kindness and forgiveness
- Gratitude
Quote cards
The opening line of this passage as an image, with its citation — for sharing or keeping.