Seneca the Younger Quotes
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After death there is nothing.
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Men trust their eyes rather than their ears; the road by precept is long and tedious, by example short and effectual.
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Virtue with some is nothing but successful temerity.
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We are sure to get the better of fortune if we do but grapple with her.
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Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.
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The greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution; who resists to sorest temptation from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menaces and frowns; whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God is most unfaltering.
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It is not poverty that we praise, it is the man whom poverty cannot humble or bend.
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A hated government does not long survive.
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Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness.
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A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.
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We are born subjects, and to obey God is perfect liberty. He that does this shall be free, safe and happy.
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But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.
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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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It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor.
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Men's language is as their lives.
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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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The way to good conduct is never too late.
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Good sides to adversity are best admired at a distance.
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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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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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Light griefs do speak, while sorrow's tongue is bound.
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There is nothing which persevering effort and unceasing and diligent care cannot accomplish.
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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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A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught.