Moral Letters to Lucilius Section 18

Omnia ista nobis accedant, non haereant, ut si abducentur, sine ulla nostri laceratione discedant. Utamur illis, non gloriemur, et utamur parce tamquam depositis apud nos et abituris. Quisquis illa sine ratione possedit, non diu tenuit, ipsa enim se felicitas, nisi temperatius premit. Si fugacissimis bonis credidit, cito deseritur et, ut non deseratur, adfligitur. Paucis deponere felicitatem molliter licuit; ceteri cum iis, inter quae eminuere, labuntur et illos degravant ipsa, quae extulerant.

Que tout cela s’approche de nous, mais n’y adhère pas, afin que si on nous l’enlève, la séparation s’opère sans déchirement. Il faut en user, non en faire gloire, et en user modérément, comme de dépôts prêts à fuir de nos mains. Quiconque ne fut point sobre dans la possession ne les garda jamais longtemps : car la félicité qui ne se tempère pas croule sur elle-même. Compte-t-elle sur ses fugitifs avantages, elle s’en voit délaissée bien vite : les conserve-t-elle, ils l’écrasent. Peu d’hommes ont pu sans risque déposer doucement leur prospérité : la plupart trébuchent en même temps que leur grandeur, accablés sous l’échafaudage qui les tenait exhaussés.

Let everything of this nature be added to us, and not stick fast to us, so that, if it is withdrawn, it may come away without tearing off any part of us. Let us use these things, but not boast of them, and let us use them sparingly, as if they were given for safe-keeping and will be withdrawn. Anyone who does not employ reason in his possession of them never keeps them long; for prosperity of itself, if uncontrolled by reason, overwhelms itself. If anyone has put his trust in goods that are most fleeting, he is soon bereft of them, and, to avoid being bereft, he suffers distress. Few men have been permitted to lay aside prosperity gently. The rest all fall, together with the things amid which they have come into eminence, and they are weighted down by the very things which had before exalted them.