Seneca, Moral Epistle 68.1-2
“I agree with your plan: retreat into leisure. But hide your leisure as well. When you do this, you know that you are following the Stoic example if not their command. But, you will be in line with the command too and will earn approval from yourself and anyone you want.
As Stoics, we do not commend public life in every matter, all the time, or without boundaries. In addition, when we have given someone wise to a public life worth their time–by which I mean the whole world–they cannot ever be outside the public realm, even when withdrawn. No, instead someone perhaps has given up one little part of it and has moved on to more important and broader territory. Then, when they have made it to heaven, they understand how humble a place was occupied when they were in the curule chair or on the judge’s bench.
Keep this in your thoughts. The wise person never does more than when divine and human matters appear together in view.”
Consilio tuo accedo; absconde te in otio. Sed et ipsum otium absconde. Hoc te facturum Stoicorum etiam si non praecepto, at exemplo licet scias. Sed ex praecepto quoque facies; et tibi et cui voles adprobabis. Nec ad omnem rem publicam mittimus nec semper nec sine ullo fine.
Praeterea, cum sapienti rem publicam ipso dignam dedimus, id est mundum, non est extra rem publicam, etiam si recesserit, immo fortasse relicto uno angulo in maiora atque ampliora transit et caelo inpositus intellegit, cum sellam aut tribunal ascenderet, quam humili loco sederit. Depone hoc apud te, numquam plus agere sapientem, quam quom in conspectum eius divina atque humana venerunt.
