Seneca the Younger Quotes
-
Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
-
He that lays down precepts for the governing of our lives, and moderating our passions, obliges humanity not only in the present, but in all future generations.
-
Let us bear with magnanimity whatever it is needful for us to bear.
-
The state of that man's mind who feels too intense an interest as to future events, must be most deplorable.
-
To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.
-
In every good man a God doth dwell.
-
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.
-
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.
-
It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.
-
It is equally a fault to believe all men or to believe none.
-
Fire proves gold, adversity proves men.
-
God has not revealed all things to man and has entrusted us with but a fragment of His mighty work. But He who directs all things, who has established and laid the foundation of the world, who has clothed Himself with Creation, He is greater and better than that which He has wrought. Hidden from our eyes, He can only be reached by the spirit.
-
Nothing is so false as human life, nothing so treacherous. God knows no one would have accepted it as a gift, if it had not been given without our knowledge.
-
Successful villany is called virtue.
-
Economy is in itself a great source of revenue.
-
Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.
-
Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.
-
With parsimony a little is sufficient; without it nothing is sufficient; but frugality makes a poor man rich.
-
We are so vain as to set the highest value upon those things to which nature has assigned the lowest place. What can be more coarse and rude in the mind than the precious metals, or more slavish and dirty than the people that dig and work them? And yet they defile our minds more than our bodies, and make the possessor fouler than the artificer of them. Rich men, in fine, are only the greater slaves.
-
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. We must learn to control and focus the force of our imagination on the good, bright side so it is positive and constructive helping ourselves and others, rather than let its force focus on the bad, dark side so it is negative and destructive hurting ourselves and others!
-
What were once vices are the fashion of the day.
-
A hungry people listens not to reason, not cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers.
-
The road by precepts is tedious, by example, short and efficacious.
-
The Fates guide those who go willingly. Those who do not, they drag.