Seneca the Younger Quotes
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They who have light in themselves will not revolve as satellites.
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Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
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Successful villany is called virtue.
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He who forbids not sin when he may, commands it
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There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn't just fall to a person's lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn't go to anyone other than oneself to find her.
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Some cures are worse than the dangers they combat.
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It is remarkable that Providence has given us all things for our advantage near at hand; but iron, gold, and silver, being both the instruments of blood and slaughter and the price of it, nature has hidden in the bowels of the earth.
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We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.
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He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.
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The sun shines even on the wicked.
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If we desire to judge justly, we must persuade ourselves that none of us is without sin.
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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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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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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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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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It is man's duty to live in conformity with the divine will, and this means, firstly, bringing his life into line with 'nature's laws', and secondly, resigning himself completely and uncomplainingly to whatever fate may send him. Only by living thus, and not setting too high a value on things which can at any moment be taken away from him, can he discover that true, unshakeable peace and contentment to which ambition, luxury and above all avarice are among the greatest obstacles.
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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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With parsimony a little is sufficient; without it nothing is sufficient; but frugality makes a poor man rich.
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Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
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When modesty has once perished, it will never revive.
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No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. Thou must live for another, if thou wishest to live for thyself.
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Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.
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That which we are not permitted to have we delight in; that which we can have is disregarded.
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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.