Seneca the Younger Quotes
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There is no fair wind for one who knows not whither he is bound.
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On entering a temple we assume all signs of reverence. How much more reverent then should we be before the heavenly bodies, the stars, the very nature of God!
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The mind makes the nobleman, and uplifts the lowly to high degree.
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What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.
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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.
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The body is not a permanent dwelling, but a sort of inn which is to be left behind when one perceives that one is a burden to the host.
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Let us bear with magnanimity whatever it is needful for us to bear.
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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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Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other.
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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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You talk one way, you live another.
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The man who while he gives thinks of what he will get in return, deserves to be deceived.
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To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.
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It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
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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.
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A man's ability cannot possibly be of one sort and his soul of another. If his soul be well-ordered, serious and restrained, his ability also is sound and sober. Conversely, when the one degenerates, the other is contaminated.
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A man who has taken your time recognises no debt; yet it is the one he can never repay.
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No man esteems anything that comes to him by chance; but when it is governed by reason, it brings credit both to the giver and receiver; whereas those favors are in some sort scandalous that make a man ashamed of his patron.
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There in no one more unfortunate than the man who has never been unfortunate. For it has never been in his power to try himself.
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He that will do no good offices after a disappointment must stand still, and do just nothing at all. The plough goes on after a barren year; and while the ashes are yet warm, we raise a new house upon the ruins of a former.
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Persistent kindness conquers the ill-disposed.
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Revenge is an inhuman word.
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Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart.
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Why will no man confess his faults? Because he continues to indulge in them; a man cannot tell his dream till he wakes.