Most Intimate Friends

[Seek to make the great writers of history as your most intimate friends. For] no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day.

No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; the courting of none will tax your purse, but from them you will take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you do not draw the utmost that you can desire. What happiness, what a fair old age awaits him who has offered himself as a client to these! He will have friends from whom he may seek counsel on matters great and small.

—Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On the Shortness of Life §14-15, translated by John W. Basore.