Seneca the Younger Quotes
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I had rather never receive a kindness than never bestow one.
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The swiftness of time is infinite, as is still more evident when we look back on the past.
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It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous, and why not over-grateful, too? There is a mischievous excess that borders so close upon ingratitude that it is no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other; but, in regard that there is good-will in the bottom of it, however distempered; for it is effectually but kindness out of the wits.
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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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Whatever is to make us better and happy God has placed either openly before us or close to us.
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Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
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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.
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Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all. . . . .
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It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.
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It is sometimes pleasant even to act like a madman.
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It is a world of mischief that may be done by a single example of avarice or luxury. One voluptuous palate makes many more.
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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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Humanity is fortunate, because no man is unhappy except by his own fault.
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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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Not he who has little, but he whose wishes more, is poor.
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If wisdom were offered me with the proviso that I should keep it shut up and refrain from declaring it, I should refuse. There's no delight in owning anything unshared.
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Those whom fortune has never favored are more joyful than those whom she has deserted.
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Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.
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The wise man will always reflect concerning the quality not the quantity of life.
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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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To meditate an injury is to commit one.
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Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
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There are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.
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It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.