Named source · c. 56–62 CE treatise · represented Aubrey Stewart 1887 English translation

On Benefits Quotes by Seneca: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to On Benefits by or associated with Seneca, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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About this source

Seneca’s On Benefits (De Beneficiis), Book IV, concerning gratitude and social obligation

Topics and ideas

The links between help, mutual confidence, gratitude, ingratitude and the bonds of human society.

Edition and date context

c. 56–62 CE treatise · represented Aubrey Stewart 1887 English translation

Dates represented in this collection: c. 56–62 CE. Individual quotation notes provide the most specific context for a passage.

English wording

Translation

Aubrey Stewart — Translator · Latin → English

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Represented passages

1 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1

To what do we trust for safety, if not in mutual good offices one to another?

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“To what do we trust for safety, if not in mutual good offices one to another?”

Seneca

Meaning & context

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.

Source details

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.

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