Seneca the Younger Quotes
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Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
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The Fates guide those who go willingly. Those who do not, they drag.
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You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time.
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No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already.
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The best way to do good to ourselves is to do it to others; the right way to gather is to scatter.
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Fear drives the wretched to prayer
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An unpopular rule is never long maintained.
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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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The sun shines even on the wicked.
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The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
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The gladiator is formulating his plan in the arena or essentially Too late.
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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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I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.
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A man who examines the saddle and bridle and not the animal itself when he is out to buy a horse is a fool; similarly, only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his position, which after all is only something we wear like clothing.
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Not he who has little, but he whose wishes more, is poor.
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The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company
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A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.
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He who comes to a conclusion when the other side is unheard, may have been just in his conclusion, but yet has not been just in his conduct.
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The whole discord of this world consists in discords.
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The greatest wealth is a poverty of desires.
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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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The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience: temperance in prosperity, and patient courage in adversity.
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The mind is never right but when it is at peace within itself; the soul is in heaven even while it is in the flesh, if it be purged of its natural corruptions, and taken up with divine thoughts, and contemplations.
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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.