Seneca the Younger Quotes
-
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.
-
People do not die - they kill themselves.
-
Leave in concealment what has long been concealed.
-
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.
-
Humanity is fortunate, because no man is unhappy except by his own fault.
-
Delay not; swift the flight of fortune's greatest favours.
-
The mind should be allowed some relaxation, that it may return to its work all the better for the rest.
-
It is a world of mischief that may be done by a single example of avarice or luxury. One voluptuous palate makes many more.
-
I had rather never receive a kindness than never bestow one.
-
Live among others as if God beheld you; speak to God as if others were listening.
-
What narrow innocence it is for one to be good only according to the law.
-
Who needs forgiveness, should the same extend with readiness.
-
We gain so much by quickness, and lose so much by slowness.
-
The proper amount of wealth is that which neither descends to poverty nor is far distant from it.
-
Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
-
Fear drives the wretched to prayer
-
There is as much greatness of mind in the owning of a good turn as in the doing of it; and we must no more force a requital out of season than be wanting in it.
-
Let us bear with magnanimity whatever it is needful for us to bear.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The Fates guide those who go willingly. Those who do not, they drag.
-
What if a man save my life with a draught that was prepared to poison me? The providence of the issue does not at all discharge the obliquity of the intent. And the same reason holds good even in religion itself. It is not the incense, or the offering that is acceptable to God, but the purity and devotion of the worshipper.
-
Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.
-
If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.