No people-pleasing. Seneca, Epistles 3.29.10-12

Seneca concludes his epistle with a quote from Epicurus. This quote discusses the importance of personal integrity, which Seneca sees as inimical to public celebrity. Philosophy teaches us to consider arguments rather than people, truth rather than consensus, he says. To please the people, you must lose the respect of the only person who really matters: yourself.

Si pudorem haberes, ultimam mihi pensionem remisisses; sed ne ego quidem me sordide geram in finem aeris alieni et tibi quod debeo impingam. Numquam volui populo placere; nam quae ego scio non probat populus, quae probat populus ego nescio. Quis hoc? inquis, tamquam nescias cui imperem. Epicurus; sed idem hoc omnes tibi ex omni domo conclamabunt, Peripatetici, Academici, Stoici, Cynici. Quis enim placere populo potest cui placet virtus? malis artibus popularis favor quaeritur. Similem te illis facias oportet: non probabunt nisi agnoverint. Multo autem ad rem magis pertinet qualis tibi videaris quam aliis; conciliari nisi turpi ratione amor turpium non potest. Quid ergo illa laudata et omnibus praeferenda artibus rebusque philosophia praestabit? scilicet ut malis tibi placere quam populo, ut aestimes iudicia, non numeres, ut sine metu deorum hominumque vivas, ut aut vincas mala aut finias. Ceterum, si te videro celebrem secundis vocibus vulgi, si intrante te clamor et plausus, pantomimica ornamenta, obstrepuerint, si tota civitate te feminae puerique laudaverint, quidni ego tui miserear, cum sciam quae via ad istum favorem ferat? Vale.

If you had any decency, you would return the last payment I made. But though I have to go broke to secure another loan, still I shall render you what I owe. Here it is: “I've never wanted to please the people, for they do not approve what I know, and I am ignorant of that which meets with their approval.” “Who's this?” you say, as though you didn't know my backer. Epicurus, of course. But this teaching is one you'll hear everyone shouting together, from all the schools. Peripatetics, Academics, Stoics, Cynics—they all agree. What lover of virtue could ever please the people, really? Popular favor is sought by evil arts. You must make yourself like them: they will not approve anything they haven't recognized. But how you appear to yourself matters much more than your appearance to others. The love of criminals cannot be won save by criminal means. What then is the point of philosophy, the excellent teaching for which she is praised and preferred to all other arts and things in this world? Just this, that you should prefer to please yourself rather than the mob. That you should respect arguments rather than count their adherents. That you should live without fear of gods or men, and that you should either conquer evil entirely, or impose strict limits on it. That being the case, why wouldn't I feel sorry for you, if I saw you turned into a celebrity, hailed by the mob's happy voices, greeted with shouts, applause, and obnoxious parades wherever you went, praised throughout the state by women and boys? I would be sorry, then, for I know the foul road that leads to such favor. Farewell.