There is no unhappiness in what habit has made part of one’s nature: by degrees men find pleasure in doing what they were first driven to do by necessity.
― SenecaOn Providence (Chapter 4)Modernized wording
AI put this 1889 translation into today's English. Only the wording changed: each rewrite was checked against the original to keep its exact meaning.
“There is no unhappiness in what use has made part of one’s nature: by degrees men find pleasure in doing what they were first driven to do by necessity.”
Translated by Aubrey Stewart, 1889
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)