Seneca the Younger Quotes
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During difficult times and after mistakes and failures it is helpful to remember ... Oftentimes calamity turns to our advantage and great ruins make way for greater glories.
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Light griefs are plaintive , but great ones are dumb
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Make haste to live, and consider each day a life.
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I persist on praising not the life I lead, but that which I ought to lead. I follow it at a mighty distance, crawling
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It is to the interest of the commonwealth of mankind that there should be someone who is unconquered, someone against whom fortune has no power.
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It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
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He, who holds out but a doubtful hope of succour to the afflicted, denies it.
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The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.
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No crime has been without a precedent.
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Indolence is stagnation; employment is life.
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It is man's duty to live in conformity with the divine will, and this means, firstly, bringing his life into line with 'nature's laws', and secondly, resigning himself completely and uncomplainingly to whatever fate may send him. Only by living thus, and not setting too high a value on things which can at any moment be taken away from him, can he discover that true, unshakeable peace and contentment to which ambition, luxury and above all avarice are among the greatest obstacles.
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Virtue is shut out from no one; she is open to all, accepts all, invites all, gentlemen, freedmen, slaves, kings, and exiles; she selects neither house nor fortune; she is satisfied with a human being without adjuncts.
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There is nothing more despicable than an old man who has no other proof than his age to offer of his having lived long in the world.
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The rust of the mind is the destruction of genius.
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The origin of all mankind was the same; it is only a clear and good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself.
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Greed's worst point is its ingratitude.
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Dissembling profiteth nothing; a feigned countenance, and slightly forged externally, deceiveth but very few.
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Injustice never rules forever.
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To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.
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There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.
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The customs of that most criminal nation (Israel) have gained such strength that they have now been received in all lands. The conquered have given laws to the conquerors.
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Who has more leisure than a worm?
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When some state or other offered Alexander a part of its territory and half of all its property he told them that 'he hadn't come to Asia with the intention of accepting whatever they cared to give him, but of letting them keep whatever he chose to leave them.' Philosophy, likewise, tells all other occupations: 'It's not my intention to accept whatever time is leftover from you; you shall have, instead, what I reject.' Give your whole mind to her.
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Poverty with joy isn't poverty at all. The poor man is not one who has little, but one who hankers after more.