Keep life simple. Seneca, Epistles 1.8.5-6
Seneca finishes his speech to posterity, praising the outlook on life that looks for happiness in basic food, clothing, and shelter. This matters more to him than fulfilling the various public duties associated with being a Roman noble in the Augustan Principate (posting bail for clients whom you defend in court, sealing a will disposing your goods to those most deserving, participating actively in the allocation of magistracies in the senate). If you tend the basics well, that is the best offering to gods and humanity that you can make, he says. <Latin>.
Hanc ergo sanam ac salubrem formam vitae tenete, ut corpori tantum indulgeatis quantum bonae valetudini satis est. Durius tractandum est ne animo male pareat: cibus famem sedet, potio sitim exstinguat, vestis arceat frigus, domus munimentum sit adversus infesta temporis. Hanc utrum caespes erexerit an varius lapis gentis alienae, nihil interest: scitote tam bene hominem culmo quam auro tegi. Contemnite omnia quae supervacuus labor velut ornamentum ac decus ponit; cogitate nihil praeter animum esse mirabile, cui magno nihil magnum est.
Si haec mecum, si haec cum posteris loquor, non videor tibi plus prodesse quam cum ad vadimonium advocatus descenderem aut tabulis testamenti anulum imprimerem aut in senatu candidato vocem et manum commodarem? Mihi crede, qui nihil agere videntur maiora agunt: humana divinaque simul tractant.
“Hold on to a sound and wholesome form of life, so that you may indulge your body as much as is enough for good health. It is too hard to keep the mind from noticing evil, to ward thoughts rather than things. Let food sate your hunger. Let drink quench your thirst. Clothes should keep out the cold, and your home ought to be a defense against harsh weather. Whether that defense is provided by walls of sod or multicolored stone from another nation makes no difference: a person can be covered as effectively by straw as by gold, you must know. Despise all those things that needless labor offers by way of ornament and grace. Remember that nothing is wonderful except the mind—and a great mind will deem nothing great.”
If I say these things to myself and to posterity, do I not appear to you as valuable as I would if I were posting bail in the character of an advocate, or marking the tablets of a will with my signet-ring, or lending my voice and hand to some candidate for office in the senate? Believe me when I say that those who seem to do nothing are doing more than others: they are attending the business of the gods, and at the same time that of mankind.