Seneca the Younger Quotes
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What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
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Vice is contagious, and there is no trusting the sound and the sick together.
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Such is the blindness, nay the insanity of mankind, that some men are driven to death by the fear of it.
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You talk one way, you live another.
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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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The worst thing about getting old is evil men cease to fear you
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The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will.
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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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To make a commencement requires a mental effort.
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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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The arts are the servant; wisdom its master.
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No one can wear a mask for very long.
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It passes in the world for greatness of mind, to be perpetually giving and loading people with bounties; but it is one thing to know how to give and another thing not to know how to keep. Give me a heart that is easy and open, but I will have no holes in it; let it be bountiful with judgment, but I will have nothing run out of it I know not how.
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Drunkenness doesn't create vices, but it brings them to the fore.
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A good mind is a lord of a kingdom.
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Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.
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A man who suffers or stresses before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary
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Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from above, so many medicinal springs do not alter the taste of the sea, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. For it maintains its balance, and over all that happens it throws its own complexion, because it is more powerful than external circumstances.
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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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We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.
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If true, the Pythagorean principles as to abstain from flesh, foster innocence; if ill-founded they at least teach us frugality, and what loss have you in losing your cruelty? It merely deprives you of the food of lions and vultures...let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.
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Life without the courage to die is slavery.
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Fortune can take away riches, but not courage.
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What madness it is for a man to starve himself to enrich his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him.