Seneca the Younger Quotes
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Make haste to live, and consider each day a life.
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The willing, destiny guides them; the unwilling, destiny drags them.
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We sought therefore to amend our will, and not to suffer it through despite to languish long time in error.
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A benefit is estimated according to the mind of the giver.
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Only a great man, believe me, and one whose excellence rises far above human failings, will not allow anything to be stolen from his own span of time, and his life is very long precisely because he has devoted to himself entirely any time that became available. None of it lay uncultivated and idle, none was under another man's control, for guarding it most jealously, he found nothing worth exchanging for his own precious time.
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There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.
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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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He who blushes at riding in a rattletrap, will boast when he rides in style.
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It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous, and why not over-grateful, too? There is a mischievous excess that borders so close upon ingratitude that it is no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other; but, in regard that there is good-will in the bottom of it, however distempered; for it is effectually but kindness out of the wits.
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The sun shines even on the wicked.
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As long as we are among humans, let us be humane.
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It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.
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I was not born for one corner. The whole world is my native land.
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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.
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He who asks with timidity invites a refusal.
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Greed's worst point is its ingratitude.
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An age builds up cities: an hour destroys them.
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Happy he whoe'er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to the land.
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Injustice never rules forever.
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Truth will never be tedious unto him that travelleth in the secrets of nature; there is nothing but falsehood that glutteth us.
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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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You must know for which harbor you are headed, if you are to catch the right wind to take you there.
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When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.
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Our minds must relax: they will rise better and keener after rest. Just as you must not force fertile farmland, as uninterrupted productivity will soon exhaust it, so constant effort will sap our mental vigour, while a short period of rest and relaxation will restore our powers. Unremitting effort leads to a kind of mental dullness and lethargy.