Seneca the Younger Quotes
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I do not sacrifice, but lend myself to business.
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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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Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.
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I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.
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You cease to be afraid when you cease to hope; for hope is accompanied by fear.
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To make a commencement requires a mental effort.
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How great would be our peril if our slaves began to number us!
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The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.
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Some cures are worse than the dangers they combat.
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There is no genius free from some tincture of madness
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Although a man has so well purged his mind that nothing can trouble or deceive him any more, yet he reached his present innocence through sin.
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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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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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A man who has taken your time recognises no debt; yet it is the one he can never repay.
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We should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering.
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That poverty is no disaster is understood by everyone who has not yet succumbed to the madness of greed and luxury that turns everything topsy-turvy.
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The mind is never right but when it is at peace within itself; the soul is in heaven even while it is in the flesh, if it be purged of its natural corruptions, and taken up with divine thoughts, and contemplations.
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He worships God who knows him.
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Watch over yourself. Be your own accuser, then your judge; ask yourself grace sometimes, and, if there is need, impose upon yourself some pain.
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God never repents of what He has first resolved upon.
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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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There is no fair wind for one who knows not whither he is bound.
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Good sides to adversity are best admired at a distance.
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Persistent kindness conquers the ill-disposed.