Seneca the Younger Quotes
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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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Do you desire not to be angry? Be not inquisitive. He who inquires what is said of him only works out his own misery.
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Nobody will keep the thing he hears to himself, and nobody will repeat just what he hears and no more.
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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.
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Bear in mind that you commit a crime by injuring even a wicked brother.
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Everything in art is but a copy of nature.
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The vices of idleness are only to be shaken off by active employment.
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Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
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Teach the art of living well.
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A man who suffers or stresses before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary
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God has given some gifts to the whole human race, from which no one is excluded.
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Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears; the effect of precepts is therefore slow and tedious, whilst that of examples is summary and effectual.
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You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.
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Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.
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As the world leads we follow.
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God is near you, is with you, is inside you.
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The abundance of books is distraction
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We are born to lose and to perish, to hope and to fear, to vex ourselves and others; and there is no antidote against a common calamity but virtue; for the foundation of true joy is in the conscience.
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True joy is a serene and sober motion; and they are miserably out so that take laughing for rejoicing; the seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolutions of a brave mind.
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A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.
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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.
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Life without the courage to die is slavery.
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The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.
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Four things does a reckless man gain who covets his neighbor's wife - demerit, an uncomfortable bed, thirdly, punishment, and lastly, hell.