Letters 76.28

Sometimes, as a result of noble conduct, one wins great joy even in a very short and fleeting space of time; and though none of the fruits of a deed that has been done will accrue to the doer after he is dead and removed from the sphere of human affairs, yet the mere contemplation of a deed that is to be done is a delight, and the brave and upright man, picturing to himself the guerdons of his death,—guerdons such as the freedom of his country and the deliverance of all those for whom he is paying out his life,—partakes of the greatest pleasure and enjoys the fruit of his own peril.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 76.28, translated by Richard Mott Gummere