He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the Caesars.

He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he failed.

It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man _must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of Mammon and the service of God.

No man ever gained anything but contempt and ruin by incessantly halting between two opinions.
And by not taking that lofty line of duty which a Zeno or an Antisthenes would have taken, Seneca became more or less involved in some of the most dreadful events of Nero's reign.

Every one of the terrible doubts under which his reputation has suffered arose from his having permitted the principle of expedience to supercede the laws of virtue.