Seneca the Younger Quotes
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Every one has time if he likes. Business runs after nobody: people cling to it of their own free will and think that to be busy is a proof of happiness.
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It is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
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No man ever became wise by chance.
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Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than to much cunning.
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It is a proof of nobility of mind to despise injuries.
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The foremost art of Kings is the power to endure hatred.
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We are sure to get the better of fortune if we do but grapple with her.
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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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The mind, unless it is pure and holy, cannot see God.
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Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.
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Light griefs do speak, while sorrow's tongue is bound.
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A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught.
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How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant are the things that are honorable finally become, for you, the same.
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Let tears flow of their own accord; their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.
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Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.
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It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen that is the common right of humanity.
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What a vile and abject thing is man if he do not raise himself above humanity.
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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.
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Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it comes.
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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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It is better to have useless knowledge than to know nothing.
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There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.
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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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The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.