Content with bare necessities. Seneca, Epistles 4.31.11

Seneca concludes his epistle exhorting Lucilius to choose needs over wants, divine nature over human luxury (which fosters an insatiable appetite for more than we can ever use or appreciate properly). He notes that what makes us great, as humans, is the power of our minds: he is referring not to the intellect per se, the part of the mind that notices & parses information, but to the will, the part of the mind that fosters righteous, good, and generous behavior. He says that righteous, good, and generous minds can be found in all stations of contemporary Roman life—among the noble knights, the common freedmen, & the lowly slaves. Anyone can rise to become a peer of the gods, no matter how unfortunate or impoverished he, or she, might appear.

Quaerendum est quod non fiat in dies eius, qui non possit obstari. Quid hoc est? animus, sed hic rectus, bonus, magnus. Quid aliud voces hunc quam deum in corpore humano hospitantem? Hic animus tam in equitem Romanum quam in libertinum, quam in servum potest cadere. Quid est enim eques Romanus aut libertinus aut servus? nomina ex ambitione aut iniuria nata. Subsilire in caelum ex angulo licet: exsurge modo et te quoque dignum finge deo (†).

Finges autem non auro vel argento: non potest ex hac materia imago deo exprimi similis; cogita illos, cum propitii essent, fictiles fuisse. Vale.

Here you must look for something that does not occur in the life of one who cannot bear opposition. What is this thing? A mind, but not just any mind: it must be righteous, good, and great. What would you call it if not a god playing guest in a human body? This mind can manifest as easily in a freedman as in a Roman knight, and just as easily in a slave. What is a knight, really, or a freedman, or a slave? Names and titles are born from flattery and injustice. It is quite possible to make the leap to heaven from the dankest shithole on earth. Rise up, then, and make yourself the peer of gods.

You will not achieve worship with gold or silver: from this material no image like a god's can be forced. Remember that all good likenesses of deity have been shaped from earth. Farewell.

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(†) Here Seneca quotes Vergil's Aeneid, specifically the passage in which the Greek king Evander shows the hero Aeneas where the god Hercules rested when his journey back from Iberia took him through the impoverished realm that would later become the city of Rome (Aeneid 8.362-9). Evander definitely agrees with Seneca, that human wealth is not divine:

Ut ventum ad sedes: Haec inquit limina victor

Alcides subiit, haec illum regia cepit.

Aude, hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum

finge deo rebusque veni non asper egenis.

As they reached his humble home

“Here,” he says, “the victor came

“Bowed his head to pass this door

“Made this hall his royal court.

“Dare, my guest, to hate on wealth

“As peer of gods invent yourself

“Come in glad, like Hercules

“Content with bare necessities.”