Letters 113.20

If virtue is a living thing, and virtue is a Good—is not, then, every Good a living thing? It is. Our school professes it.

Now to save a father’s life is a Good; it is also a Good to pronounce one’s opinion judiciously in the senate, and it is a Good to hand down just opinions; therefore the act of saving a father’s life is a living thing, also the act of pronouncing judicious opinions. We have carried this absurd argument so far that you cannot keep from laughing outright: wise silence is a Good, and so is a frugal dinner; therefore silence and dining are living things.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 113.20, translated by Richard Mott Gummere