On the Happy Life, Section 14

Seneca — The Senator

Let virtue lead the way and carry the banner. We can still have pleasure, but we'll be in control of it. Pleasure might win a few small victories, but it won't force us to do anything. But people who let pleasure take the lead? They end up with neither virtue nor pleasure. They lose virtue completely. And they don't really have pleasure either — pleasure has them. They're tortured when it's gone and suffocated when they have too much. They're miserable when pleasure leaves them, and even more miserable when it overwhelms them. They're like ships caught in the dangerous shallows of the Syrtes — sometimes stranded on dry sand, sometimes tossed around by crashing waves.

Seneca — The Senator Original

Let virtue lead the way and bear the standard: we shall have pleasure for all that, but we shall be her masters and controllers; she may win some concessions from us, but will not force us to do anything. On the contrary, those who have permitted pleasure to lead the van, have neither one nor the other: for they lose virtue altogether, and yet they do not possess pleasure, but are possessed by it, and are either tortured by its absence or choked by its excess, being wretched if deserted by it, and yet more wretched if overwhelmed by it, like those who are caught in the shoals of the Syrtes and at one time are left on dry ground and at another tossed on the flowing waves.