1I ask about you, and inquire of everyone who comes from your region what you are doing, where and with whom you are spending your time. 1You cannot deceive me; 1I am with you. 1Live as though I were going to hear what you do, or rather as though I were going to see it. 1Do you ask what delights me most of all that I hear about you? 1That I hear nothing, that most of those I question do not know what you are doing. 2This is what is healthy: not to associate with people unlike yourself and with desires different from your own. 2I am confident indeed that you cannot be turned aside and that you will hold to your purpose, even if a crowd of tempters surrounds you.
2What then? 2I do not fear that they will change you; I fear that they will hinder you. 2And even one who delays you does great harm, especially when life is so short, and we make it shorter by our inconstancy, making one fresh beginning of it after another. 2We split it into little pieces and tear it to shreds. 3Hurry, then, dearest Lucilius, and think how much you would add to your speed if an enemy were pressing at your back, if you suspected that cavalry were approaching and following hard on the tracks of the fugitives. 3This is happening: you are being pressed; 3speed up and escape, bring yourself to safety, and consider again and again what a fine thing it is to complete one's life before death, and then to await the remaining portion of one's time free from care, claiming nothing for oneself, established in possession of a happy life, which does not become happier by becoming longer.
4Oh, when will you see that time when you will know that time is no concern of yours, when you will be tranquil and calm and careless of tomorrow, as one who has his fill of himself! 4Do you want to know what it is that makes people greedy for the future? 4No one has come into possession of himself. 4And so your parents wished other things for you; 4but I, on the contrary, wish you contempt for all those things of which they wished you abundance. 4Their prayers plunder many people in order to enrich you. 4Whatever they transfer to you must be taken away from someone. 5I wish you possession of yourself, so that your mind, tossed about by wandering thoughts, may at last stand firm and be steady, that it may be content with itself and, having understood the true goods, which are possessed as soon as they are understood, may have no need of added years.
5He alone has risen above necessities, and is discharged and free, who lives when his life is complete. 5Farewell.