Seneca the Younger Quotes
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Our Creator shall continue to dwell above the sky, and that is where those on earth will end their thanksgiving.
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Epicurus says, "gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it." And where is the virtue that has not? But still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.
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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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Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.
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If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.
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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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As the world leads we follow.
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Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come . . . . Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.
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The foundation of the true joy is in the conscience.
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Adversity finds at last the man whom she has often passed by.
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Successful villany is called virtue.
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Leisure without study is death, and the grave of a living man.
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You cease to be afraid when you cease to hope; for hope is accompanied by fear.
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You talk one way, you live another.
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To things which you bear with impatience you should accustom yourself, and, by habit you will bear them well.
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Eternal law has arranged nothing better than this, that it has given us one way in to life, but many ways out.
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What must be shall be; and that which is a necessity to him that struggles, is little more than choice to him that is willing.
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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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If you sit in judgment, investigate, if you sit in supreme power, sit in command.
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Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.
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Bear in mind that you commit a crime by injuring even a wicked brother.
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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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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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The wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly.