Seneca the Younger Quotes
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It is easy enough to arouse in a listener a desire for what is honorable; for in every one of us nature has laid the foundations or sown the seeds of the virtues. We are born to them all, all of us, and when a person comes along with the necessary stimulus, then those qualities of the personality are awakened, so to speak, from their slumber.
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I am like a book, with pages that have stuck together for want of use: my mind needs unpacking and the truths stored within must be turned over from time to time, to be ready when occasion demands.
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Virtue with some is nothing but successful temerity.
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The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo.
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A favor is to a grateful man delightful always; to an ungrateful man only once.
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There is nothing which persevering effort and unceasing and diligent care cannot accomplish.
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What else is nature but God?
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Such as the chain of causes we call Fate, such is the chain of wishes: one links on to another; the whole man is bound in the chain of wishing for ever.
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Not a soul takes thought how well he may live- only how long: yet a good life might be everybody's, a long one can be nobody's.
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People do not die - they kill themselves.
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Life is a gift of the immortal Gods, but living well is the gift of philosophy.
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Great men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
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People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his kindness they still remain in his debt.
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Persistent kindness conquers the ill-disposed.
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To preserve the life of citizens, is the greatest virtue in the father of his country.
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So enjoy the pleasures of the hour as not to spoil those that are to follow.
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Nature does not reveal all her secrets at once. We imagine we are initiated in her mysteries: we are, as yet, but hanging around her outer courts.
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Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
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Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life.
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Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp, be carried to such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.
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It is a proof of nobility of mind to despise injuries.
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The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and pertubations; to understand and do our duties to God and man, and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the future.
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Be not too hasty either with praise or blame; speak always as though you were giving evidence before the judgement-seat of the Gods.
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A great step toward independence is a good-humoured stomach.