Seneca：Seneca's Morals, Excerpt 89

The malevolent and the envious content themselves only to _wish_ another man miserable; but it is the business of anger to _make_ him so, and to wreck the mischief itself; not so much desiring the hurt of another, as to inflict it. Among the powerful, it breaks out into open war, and into a private one with the common people, but without force or arms. It engages us in treacheries, perpetual troubles and contentions: it alters the very nature of a man, and punishes itself in the persecution of others. Humanity excites us to love, this to hatred; that to be beneficial to others, this to hurt them: beside, that, though it proceeds from too high a conceit of ourselves, it is yet, in effect, but a narrow and contemptible affection; especially when it meets with a mind that is hard and impenetrable, and returns the dart upon the head of him that casts it.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56075
Locator：Excerpt 89 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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