Seneca the Younger Quotes
-
Human affairs are like a chess-game: only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players. Life is like an earthen pot: only when it is shattered, does it manifest its emptiness.
-
Do what you should, not what you may.
-
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.
-
A thousand approaches lie open to death.
-
Life is most delightful on the downward slope.
-
The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.
-
A man who suffers or stresses before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary
-
Unfamiliarity lends weight to misfortune, and there was never a man whose grief was not heightened by surprise.
-
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.
-
While we wait for life, life passes
-
It is dishonorable to say one thing and think another; how much more dishonorable to write one thing and think another.
-
He who fears from near at hand often fears less.
-
I don’t mind citing a bad author if the line is good.
-
No emotion falls into dislike so readily as sorrow.
-
One must take all one's life to learn how to leave, and what will perhaps make you wonder more, one must take all one's life to learn how to die.
-
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
-
There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.
-
A hated government does not long survive.
-
Men trust their eyes rather than their ears; the road by precept is long and tedious, by example short and effectual.
-
After death there is nothing.
-
Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by action. If this be true, not only do the doctrines of wisdom help us but the precepts also, which check and banish our emotions by a sort of official decree.
-
True love can fear no one.
-
Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.
-
It is not poverty that we praise, it is the man whom poverty cannot humble or bend.