Love, according to Lucretius, is caused by the human tendency to “ascribe to others qualities which in reality they do not possess” (Lucretius BIV 1154). As a result, we often see the object of our love to be perfect and beautiful even if they are not. Once someone is in love, Lucretius states “that they squander away their strength and perish from the effort, add that their life is led at the beck and call of another. Meanwhile wealth slips away…official duties are forgotten and reputation sickens and wavers” (1121-1124). When we are in love, we prioritize another over ourselves. They are more important than our own wants, our own reputation or duties. Lucretius first remedy is to not fall in love at all as it is difficult to escape it once …show more content…
Once anger has completely taken hold, the consequences are often severe as anger has a complete disregard for logic and casts aside all thought of human decency. For Seneca, the best cure is to never allow anger to settle in our minds and always prioritize logic and reason above all else. We must “reject straightaway the first incentives to anger, to resist its very beginning, and to take care not to be betrayed into it: for it once it begins to carry us away, it is hard to get back again into a healthy condition, because reason goes for nothing when once passion has been admitted to the mind” (Seneca). If this fails, we must prevent ourselves from doing wrong when we are angry. To do this, Seneca states that “The greatest remedy for anger is delay; beg anger to grant you this at the first, not in order that it may pardon the offence, but that it may form a right judgment about it if it delays, it will come to an end. Do not attempt to quell it all at once, for its first impulses are fierce; by plucking way its parts we shall remove the whole” (Seneca). Do not attempt to destroy it instantly, but rather pause for a moment and pick it apart with logic; question it and what your actions should be rationally, and it will fall