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Who really said it

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality

Written by Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 4 BCE – 65 CE · Roman Stoic philosopher
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From Seneca’s Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter 13, ‘On Groundless Fears,’ §4. The English is Richard M. Gummere’s Loeb translation of the Latin “saepius opinione quam re laboramus” — a genuine, locatable primary source.

Last verified 7 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality” Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13 (c. 65 CE), trans. Richard M. Gummere

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Provenance

The source

Work
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Location
Letter 13, ‘On Groundless Fears,’ §4
Written
c. 62–65 CE, Rome
Translation
Richard M. Gummere, Loeb Classical Library (1917–25)

There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. ↑ the popular one-liner drops the first half of the sentence

The Latin original reads: “Plura sunt, Lucili, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.” The word opinione (opinion / apprehension) is what Gummere renders as “imagination”; other translators give “we suffer more often in apprehension than in reality.”

Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13

How we traced it

Public domain

Seneca’s text (c. 65 CE) and Gummere’s 1917–25 translation are both in the public domain.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Context

Why it mattered

Letter 13 is Seneca’s essay on groundless fear. The point of the line is not that suffering is unreal, but that anticipation multiplies it: the mind rehearses disasters that never arrive, and pays interest on debts it may never owe.

“We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating sorrow,” he writes a few sentences later — a diagnosis modern cognitive therapy would recognize two thousand years on.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Doubt Courage

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13en.wikisource.org

Full Gummere translation; the quoted line appears in the opening paragraph (§4).
Epistulae Morales, Liber II (Latin)thelatinlibrary.com

The Latin text of Letter 13, confirming ‘saepius opinione quam re laboramus.’
Seneca the Younger — sourced quotesen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line with Latin and translation in the sourced section, not among misattributions.
Seneca, Epistles (Loeb Classical Library)loebclassics.com

The Loeb edition and Gummere translation from which the English wording derives.
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (Gummere, U. Michigan scan)quod.lib.umich.edu

Digitized scan of Gummere’s printed Loeb translation of the letters.

The true author

About Seneca

Seneca

c. 4 BCE–65 CE · Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, and statesman who served as tutor and later advisor to the emperor Nero. His Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium — 124 letters on how to live — are among the most influential works of practical Stoicism. Ordered by Nero to take his own life in 65 CE, he died as his philosophy counseled.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Seneca. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, Letter 13.4. Translated by Richard M. Gummere, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library. London: Heinemann, 1917.

MLA (9th ed.)

Seneca. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium. Translated by Richard M. Gummere, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, Heinemann, 1917, Letter 13, sec. 4.

APA (7th ed.)

Seneca. (1917). Epistulae morales ad Lucilium (Vol. 1) (R. M. Gummere, Trans.). Loeb Classical Library, Heinemann. (Original work written c. 62–65 CE)

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