With elegant rhetoric the great first-century Roman philosopher Seneca examines worry, both real and imaginary, and the mental discipline of overcoming fear. In Letters from a Stoic, he points out to a young friend that, "Some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow."
