Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“To what do we trust for safety, if not in mutual good offices one to another?”
- Source
- On Benefits
- Date
- c. 56–62 CE
- English wording
- Aubrey Stewart — Translator · from Latin
Meaning of “To what do we trust for safety, if…”
The question connects human safety to reciprocal acts of assistance: people rely on one another because no individual can secure every need alone. In the argument, gratitude helps preserve these shared bonds.
Where does it come from?
On Benefits (De Beneficiis), Book IV, section 18, Aubrey Stewart English translation (1887). This is Seneca’s rhetorical question in an argument that ingratitude weakens human association; it is historical Stoic moral philosophy, not an empirical public-safety claim.
