How to pray. Seneca, Epistles 1.10.5

Seneca explains his own attitude to prayer. While many use it as a way to express privately what they fear to reveal in public, he prefers to cultivate thoughts whose integrity renders them impervious to publicity. The more your private thoughts reflect ethics and values you can publicly own, the better.

Sed ut more meo cum aliquo munusculo epistulam mittam, verum est quod apud Athenodorum inveni: tunc scito esse te omnibus cupiditatibus solutum, cum eo perveneris ut nihil deum roges nisi quod rogare possis palam. Nunc enim quanta dementia est hominum! turpissima vota dis insusurrant; si quis admoverit aurem, conticiscent, et quod scire hominem nolunt deo narrant. Vide ergo ne hoc praecipi salubriter possit: sic vive cum hominibus tamquam deus videat, sic loquere cum deo tamquam homines audiant. Vale.

Now, to conclude this epistle with a little gift, as is my custom, I am sending along this truth discovered in the writings of Athenodorus (†): “You will know that you are truly free from every desire when you reach the point of asking nothing of the gods that you could not ask in public.” What madness fills the minds of men, whispering the worst prayers to the gods! The moment another person twitches an ear, they shut up, saving for a god the story that they want no man to know. Consider whether this is a wholesome rule: Live among men as though a god sees, and speak with gods as though men hear. Farewell.

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(†) Athenodorus of Canana (c. 74 CE-7 CE) studied philosophy with Posidonius of Rhodes, a famously learned Stoic from Apamea in Syria, before becoming renowned in his own right as the tutor of young Octavian, who later inherited the mantle of Julius Caesar as Augustus.