Seneca the Younger Quotes
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There is nothing more miserable and foolish than anticipation.
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No man is born wise; but wisdom and virtue require a tutor; though we can easily learn to be vicious without a master.
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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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Reason wishes that the judgement it gives be just; anger wishes that the judgement it has given seem to be just.
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Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.
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Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself.
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There is nothing that Nature has made necessary which is more easy than death; we are longer a-coming into the world than going out of it; and there is not any minute of our lives wherein we may not reasonably expect it. Nay, it is but a momen'ts work, the parting of soul and body. What a shame is it then to stand in fear of anything so long that is over so soon!
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A king is he who has laid fear aside and the base longings of an evil heart; whom ambition unrestrained and the fickle favor of the reckless mob move not.
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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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A man can refrain from wanting what he has not and cheerfully make the best of a bird in the hand.
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Self-denial is the best riches.
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What were once vices are the fashion of the day.
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No man finds it difficult to return to nature except the man who has deserted nature.
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Drunkenness doesn't create vices, but it brings them to the fore.
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Such is the blindness, nay the insanity of mankind, that some men are driven to death by the fear of it.
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The greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution.
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If true, the Pythagorean principles as to abstain from flesh, foster innocence; if ill-founded they at least teach us frugality, and what loss have you in losing your cruelty? It merely deprives you of the food of lions and vultures...let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.
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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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Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.
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Virtue hath no virtue if it be not impugned; then appeareth how great it is, of what value and power it is, when by patience it approveth what it works.
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To the stars through difficulties.
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Revenge is an inhuman word.
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It's all in your head: you have the power to make things seem hard or easy or even amusing. The choice is yours.
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A man who has taken your time recognises no debt; yet it is the one he can never repay.