Seneca the Younger Quotes
-
He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice or arms illustrates his extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Sophroniscus, but for his son, Socrates; nor of Ariosto and Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato.
-
Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.
-
Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.
-
So enjoy the pleasures of the hour as not to spoil those that are to follow.
-
That which achieves its effect by accident is not art.
-
Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.
-
What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.
-
Those who pass their lives in foreign travel find they contract many ties of hospitality, but form no friendships.
-
When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.
-
An old man at school is a contemptible and ridiculous object.
-
Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.
-
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.
-
He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.
-
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.
-
I am telling you to be a slow-speaking person.
-
Fear drives the wretched to prayer
-
Whatever we give to the wretched, we lend to fortune.
-
It is medicine, not scenery, for which a sick man must go searching.
-
Delay not; swift the flight of fortune's greatest favours.
-
The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company
-
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.
-
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.
-
Something that can never be learnt too thoroughly can never be said too often.
-
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.