Seneca Quotes

Let tears flow of their own accord; their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony. ~ Seneca The Younger

God has given some gifts to the whole human race, from which no one is excluded. ~ Seneca The Younger

All art is but imitation of nature. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Fear drives the wretched to prayer ~ Seneca The Younger

Certain people have good, ordinary blood and others have an animated, lively sort of blood that comes to the face quickly. ~ Seneca.

Besides advising us to avoid people with vices, Seneca advises us to avoid people who are simply whiny, "who are melancholy and bewail everything, who find pleasure in every opportunity for complaint. ~ William B. Irvine

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer. ~ Seneca.

When arrogant hands once seize power, the ruler thinks authority resides in stubbornness. ~ Seneca.

You should keep on learning as long as there is something you do not know. ~ Seneca The Younger

For manliness gains much strength by being challenged ~ Seneca.

They lose the day in waiting for the night, and the night in fearing the dawn. ~ Seneca.

If you regard your last day not as a punishment but as a law of nature, the breast from which you have banished the dread of death no fear will dare to enter. ~ Seneca.

Trifling trouble find utterance; deeply felt pangs are silent. ~ Seneca The Younger

No book can be so good, as to be profitable when negligently read. ~ Seneca The Younger

As long as you live, learn how to live. ~ Seneca The Younger

He deserves praise who does not what he may, but what he ought. ~ Seneca The Younger

No one," he says, "leaves this world in a different manner from one who has just been born." That is not true; for we are worse when we die than when we were born; but it is our fault, and not that of Nature. ~ Seneca.

Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes viros.
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. ~ Seneca.

it is better to understand the balance-sheet of one's own life than of the corn trade. ~ Seneca.

Let ease and rest at times be given to the weary. ~ Seneca The Younger

When we have done everything within our power, we shall possess a great deal: but we once possessed the world. ~ Seneca.

The one to whom nothing was refused, whose tears were always wiped away by an anxious mother, will not abide being offended.
- De Ira 2.21.6 ~ Seneca.

Upon occasion we should go as far as intoxication ... Drink washes cares away, stirs the mind from its lowest depths ... But in liberty moderation is wholesome, and so it is in wine ... We ought not indulge too often, for fear the mind contract a bad habit, yet it is right to draw it toward elation and release and to banish dull sobriety for a little. ~ Seneca The Younger

To make another person hold his tongue, be you first silent. ~ Seneca The Younger

Humanity is the quality which stops one being arrogant towards one's fellows, or being acrimonious. ~ Seneca.

To be everywhere is to be nowhere. - SENECA ~ Chris Bailey

What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it. ~ Seneca The Younger

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The acquisition of riches has been to many not an end to their miseries, but a change in them: The fault is not in the riches, but the disposition. ~ Seneca The Younger

No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself ~ Seneca.

We are in the habit of saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents who were allotted to us, that they were given to us by chance. But we can choose whose children we would like to be. ~ Seneca.

It is fair to say that those who make Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and other giants of philosophy their daily companions will be more fully engaged in a rewarding life. None of these friends will be too busy to welcome you inside their home, none will fail to leave his caller feeling refreshed after an appointment. Any man can spend time with them day or night. ~ Seneca.

Success gives the character of honesty to some classes of wickedness. ~ Seneca The Younger

Men can be divided into 2 groups: one that goes ahead and achieves something, and one that comes after and criticizes. ~ Seneca The Younger

the mind itself suggests to itself many perverted, vicious forms of pleasure? - in the first place arrogance, excessive self-esteem, swaggering precedence over other men, a shortsighted, nay, a blind devotion to his own interests, dissolute luxury, excessive delight springing from the most trifling and childish causes, and also talkativeness, pride that takes a pleasure in insulting others, sloth, and the decay of a dull mind which goes to sleep over itself. ~ Seneca.

No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him. Do not trust her seeming calm; in a moment the sea is moved to its depths. The very day the ships have made a brave show in the games, they are engulfed. ~ Seneca.

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die. ~ Seneca.

Find a path or make one. ~ Seneca The Younger

If I only have the will to be grateful, I am so. ~ Seneca The Younger

The person you are matters more than the place to which you go. ~ Seneca The Younger

How much better it is that you defeat anger than that it defeats itself! ~ Seneca.

Money does all things for reward. Some are pious and honest as long as they thrive upon it, but if the devil himself gives better wages, they soon change their party. ~ Seneca The Younger

If he lose a hand through disease or war, or if some accident puts out one or both of his eyes, he will be satisfied with what is left, taking as much pleasure in his impaired and maimed body as he took when it was sound. But while he does not pine for these parts if they are missing, he prefers not to lose them. 5. In this sense the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them. When I say "can," I mean this: he endures the loss of a friend with equanimity. ~ Seneca.

The most happy ought to wish for death. ~ Seneca The Younger

People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy - I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as "realists of a larger reality" because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.

....

Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people ha ~ Ada Palmer

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. ~ Seneca.

The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but
we have been a long time on the way. ~ Seneca.

I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body. ~ Seneca The Younger

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

All the greatest blessings are a source of anxiety, and at no time should fortune be less trusted than when it is best; to maintain prosperity there is need of other prosperity, and in behalf of the prayers that have turned out well we must make still other prayers. For everything that comes to us from chance is unstable, and the higher it rises, the more liable it is to fall. Moreover, what is doomed to perish brings pleasure to no one; very wretched, therefore, and not merely short, must the life of those be who work hard to gain what they must work harder to keep. By great toil they attain what they wish, and with anxiety hold what they have attained; meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. ~ Seneca.

And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name. ~ Seneca.

For what good does it do us to guide a horse and control his speed with the curb, and then find that our own passions, utterly uncurbed, bolt with us? Or to beat many opponents in wrestling or boxing, and then to find that we ourselves are beaten by anger? ~ Seneca.

Men's language is as their lives. ~ Seneca The Younger

See what daily exercise does for one. ~ Seneca The Younger

The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages; from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vexed duodenum, or an agitated pylorus. ~ Sydney Smith

Pain, scorned by yonder gout-ridden wretch, endured by yonder dyspeptic in the midst of his dainties, borne bravely by the girl in travail. Slight thou art, if I can bear thee, short thou art if I cannot bear thee! ~ Seneca The Younger

Refrain from following the example of those whose craving is for attention, not their own improvement. ~ Seneca The Younger

Let the weary at length possess quiet rest. ~ Seneca The Younger

Any man,' he says, 'who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world. ~ Seneca.

Successful villany is called virtue. ~ Seneca The Younger

Unhappy is the man, though he rule the world, who doesn't consider himself supremely blessed. ~ Seneca The Elder

The more violent the storm the sooner it is over. ~ Seneca The Younger

No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already. ~ Seneca The Younger

The trip doesn't exist that can set you beyond the reach of cravings, fits of temper, or fears ... so long as you carry the sources of your troubles about with you, those troubles will continue to harass and plague you wherever you wander on land or on sea. Does it surprise you that running away doesn't do you any good? The things you're running away from are with you all the time. ~ Seneca.

If you want to keep a secret, never share it. ~ Seneca.

That you would not anticipate misery since the evils you dread as coming upon you may perhaps never reach you at least they are not yet come Thus some things torture us more than they ought, some before they ought and some which ought never to torture us at all. We heighten our pain either by presupposing a cause or anticipation ~ Seneca.

Nihil tam acerbum est in quo non aequus animus solatium inveniat.
There is nothing so disagreeable, that a patient mind can not find some solace for it. ~ Seneca The Younger

Every reign must submit to a greater reign. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Prudence and love cannot be mixed; you can end love, but never moderate it. ~ Seneca The Younger

It is a youthful failing to be unable to control one's impulses. ~ Seneca The Younger

But you never deign to look at yourself or listen to yourself. So you have no reason to claim credit from anyone for those attentions, since you showed them not because you wanted someone else's company but because you could not bearyour own. ~ Seneca.

Who can hope for nothing, should despair for nothing. ~ Seneca The Younger

People are delighted to accept pensions and gratuities, for which they hire out their labour or their support or their services. But nobody works out the value of time: men use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But if death threatens these same people, you will see them praying to their doctors; if they are in fear of capital punishment, you will see them prepared to spend their all to stay alive. ~ Seneca.

It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No possession is gratifying without a companion. ~ Seneca The Younger

The kind of solace that arises from having company in misery is spiteful. ~ Seneca The Younger

What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend. That is progress indeed ~ Seneca The Younger

The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received. ~ Seneca The Younger

Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration. ~ Seneca The Younger

It is the fault of youth that it cannot restrain its own impetuosity. ~ Seneca The Younger

Only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his social position, which after all is only something that we wear like clothing. ~ Seneca

But consider whether you may not get more help from the customary method[1] than from that which is now commonly called a "breviary," though in the good old days, when real Latin was spoken, it was called a "summary."[2] ~ Seneca.

I've come across people who say that there is a sort of inborn restlessness in the human spirit and an urge to change one's abode; for man is endowed with a mind which is changeable and and unsettled: nowhere at rest, it darts about and directs its thoughts to all places known and unknown, a wanderer which cannot endure repose and delights chiefly in novelty. ~ Seneca.

It is regret for the absence of his loved one which causes a mourner to grieve: yet it is clear that this in itself is bearable enough; for we do not weep at their being absent or intending to be absent during their lifetime, although when they leave our sight we have no more pleasure in them. What tortures us, therefore, is an idea. ~ Seneca

He who is everywhere is nowhere. ~ Seneca The Younger

The man who can be compelled knows not how to die. ~ Seneca The Younger

For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold. ~ Seneca The Younger

God has not revealed all things to man and has entrusted us with but a fragment of His mighty work. But He who directs all things, who has established and laid the foundation of the world, who has clothed Himself with Creation, He is greater and better than that which He has wrought. Hidden from our eyes, He can only be reached by the spirit. ~ Seneca The Younger

It would be superfluous to mention more who, though others deemed them the happiest of men, have expressed their loathing for every act of their years, and with their own lips have given true testimony against themselves; but by these complaints they changed neither themselves nor others. For when they have vented their feelings in words, they fall back into their usual round. Heaven knows! such lives as yours, though they should pass the limit of a thousand years, will shrink into the merest span; your vices will swallow up any amount of time. The space you have, which reason can prolong, although it naturally hurries away, of necessity escapes from you quickly; for you do not seize it, you neither hold it back, nor impose delay upon the swiftest thing in the world, but you allow it to slip away as if it were something superfluous and that could be replaced. ~ Seneca.

Virtue hath no virtue if it be not impugned; then appeareth how great it is, of what value and power it is, when by patience it approveth what it works. ~ Seneca The Younger

Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom yourself can improve. Men learn while they teach. ~ Seneca.

Money has yet to make anyone rich. ~ Seneca The Younger

We are members of one great body, planted by nature ... . We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole ~ Seneca.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display? ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil awhile, endure awhile, believe always, and never turn back ~ Seneca The Elder

We learn not in the school, but in life. ~ Seneca.

No man is born wise; but wisdom and virtue require a tutor; though we can easily learn to be vicious without a master. ~ Seneca The Younger

Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding. ~ Seneca The Younger

I do not sacrifice, but lend myself to business. ~ Seneca The Younger

Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature. ~ Seneca The Younger