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WT Sharpe · 06-21-2010, 12:24 AM

..... Just as the stomach, when disordered by disease and secreting bile, changes all the food which it receives, and turns every kind of sustenance into a source of pain, so whatever you entrust to an ill-regulated mind becomes to it a burden, an annoyance, and a source of misery. Thus the most prosperous and the richest men have the most trouble; and the more property they have to perplex them, the less likely they are to find out what they really are. Nothing, therefore, can reach bad men which would do them good; nay, nothing which would not do them harm. They change whatever falls to their lot into their own evil nature; and things which elsewhere would, if given to better men, be both beautiful and profitable, are ruinous to them. They cannot, therefore, bestow benefits, because no one can give what he does not possess, and, therefore, they lack the pleasure of doing good to others.
..........— Lucius Annaeus Seneca (circa 4 BCE – 65 CE), Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist. On Benefits, Book V, Section XII (circa 63 CE). From the De Beneficiis text (1876) of Berlin Gertz, edited (1887) by Aubrey Stewart.

06-21-2010, 12:24 AM	#130
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,073 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	..... Just as the stomach, when disordered by disease and secreting bile, changes all the food which it receives, and turns every kind of sustenance into a source of pain, so whatever you entrust to an ill-regulated mind becomes to it a burden, an annoyance, and a source of misery. Thus the most prosperous and the richest men have the most trouble; and the more property they have to perplex them, the less likely they are to find out what they really are. Nothing, therefore, can reach bad men which would do them good; nay, nothing which would not do them harm. They change whatever falls to their lot into their own evil nature; and things which elsewhere would, if given to better men, be both beautiful and profitable, are ruinous to them. They cannot, therefore, bestow benefits, because no one can give what he does not possess, and, therefore, they lack the pleasure of doing good to others. ..........— Lucius Annaeus Seneca (circa 4 BCE – 65 CE), Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist. *On Benefits, Book V, Section XII (circa 63 CE). From the De Beneficiis* text (1876) of Berlin Gertz, edited (1887) by Aubrey Stewart.