Seneca the Younger Quotes
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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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Before old age I took care to live well; in old age I take care to die well; but to die well is to die willingly.
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No man finds it difficult to return to nature except the man who has deserted nature.
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You talk one way, you live another.
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To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.
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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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Virtue is that perfect good, which is the complement of a happy life; the only immortal thing that belongs to mortality.
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What were once vices are the fashion of the day.
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The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.
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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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We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.
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It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
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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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Freedom can't be kept for nothing. If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.
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Cato, being scurrilously treated by a low and vicious fellow, quietly said to him, "A contest between us is very unequal, for thou canst bear ill language with ease, and return it with pleasure; but to me it is unusual to hear, and disagreeable to speak it." There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.
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Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.
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Fire proves gold, adversity proves men.
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Persistent kindness conquers the ill-disposed.
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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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A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the study of so vast a subject. A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them.
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The condition of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labor at preoccupations that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world-loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own.
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Some cures are worse than the dangers they combat.
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Pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most.
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I am telling you to be a slow-speaking person.