Seneca the Younger Quotes
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No man finds it difficult to return to nature except the man who has deserted nature.
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The wise man will always reflect concerning the quality not the quantity of life.
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There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.
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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 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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Why do people not confess vices? It is because they have not yet laid them aside. It is a waking person only who can tell their dreams.
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Study rather to fill your mind than your coffers; knowing that gold and silver were originally mingled with dirt, until avarice or ambition parted them.
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Not he who has little, but he whose wishes more, is poor.
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A benefit is estimated according to the mind of the giver.
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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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The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.
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In every good man a God doth dwell.
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As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.
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To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.
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Those vices luxury and neglect of decent manners are vices of men, not of the times.
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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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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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Lightning will wreck its displeasures not only upon pillars, trees, and sheep, but upon altars and temples, and let the sacrilegious go free.
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My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.
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Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all. . . . .
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Tis not the belly's hunger that costs so much, but its pride
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What's the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then.
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Precepts are like seeds; they are little things which do much good; if the mind which receives them has a disposition, it must not be doubted that his part contributes to the generation, and adds much to that which has been collected.
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A man's ability cannot possibly be of one sort and his soul of another. If his soul be well-ordered, serious and restrained, his ability also is sound and sober. Conversely, when the one degenerates, the other is contaminated.