“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca wrote this in his Letters to Lucilius — 124 letters written in the last years of his life, after he had retired from Nero's court and was trying to practice the philosophy he had spent decades teaching. The Latin is precise: Plura sunt quae nos terrent quam quae premunt — 'More things frighten us than weigh on us.' He was not denying that hard things happen.
There is more to this one. The full context — the events behind the words, what the author was living through, and how it applies to the specific situations of fatherhood — is in the app under Deeper Understanding.
Read the full context in DadViceDadVice matches wisdom like this to the real situations of fatherhood — the hard conversation, the long night, the moment you do not know what to say. Every quote is sourced. No motivational filler.