Seneca the Younger Quotes
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As long as we are among humans, let us be humane.
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So enjoy the pleasures of the hour as not to spoil those that are to follow.
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If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.
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Pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most.
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No crime has been without a precedent.
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That which achieves its effect by accident is not art.
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The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
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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 great, a good, and a right mind is a kind of divinity lodged in flesh, and may be the blessing of a slave as well as of a prince: it came from heaven, and to heaven it must return; and it is a kind of heavenly felicity, which a pure and virtuous mind enjoys, in some degree, even upon earth.
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It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor.
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The proper amount of wealth is that which neither descends to poverty nor is far distant from it.
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What should a wise person do when given a blow? Same as Cato when he was attacked; not fire up or revenge the insult., or even return the blow, but simply ignore it.
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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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Whatever we give to the wretched, we lend to fortune.
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When God has once begun to throw down the prosperous, He overthrows them altogether: such is the end of the mighty.
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Anger is like a ruin, which, in falling upon its victim, breaks itself to pieces.
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He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.
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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.
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Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: " Is this the condition that I feared?"
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Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.
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Dissembling profiteth nothing; a feigned countenance, and slightly forged externally, deceiveth but very few.
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The world itself is too small for the covetous.
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He that visits the sick in hopes of a legacy, but is never so friendly in all other cases, I look upon him as being no better than a raven that watches a weak sheep only to peck out its eyes.
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Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. . . . . . No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.