Nothing ought to be done without a reason: a benefit is not truly so, if it is bestowed without a reason, since reason accompanies all honorable action.
― SenecaOn Benefits (Book IV, Chapter 10)Modernized wording
AI put this 1887 translation into today's English. Only the wording changed: each rewrite was checked against the original to keep its exact meaning.
“Nothing ought to be done without a reason: a benefit is not truly so, if it be bestowed without a reason, since reason accompanies all honorable action.”
Translated by Aubrey Stewart, 1887
More from Seneca
View all quotes“Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth.”
― SenecaOn Anger (Book I, Chapter 1)
“Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement.”
― SenecaOn Anger (Book I, Chapter 5)
“There are certain things whose beginnings lie in our own power, but which, when developed, drag us along by their own force and leave us no retreat.”
― SenecaOn Anger (Book I, Chapter 7)