Seneca the Younger Quotes
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The foremost art of Kings is the power to endure hatred.
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On him does death lie heavily, who, but too well known to all, dies to himself unknown.
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Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
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Tis a human trait to hate one you have wronged
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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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A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught.
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If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.
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I know that nothing comes to pass but what God appoints; our fate is decreed, and things do not happen by chance, but every man's portion of joy and sorrow is predetermined.
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Nobody becomes guilty by fate.
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To preserve the life of citizens, is the greatest virtue in the father of his country.
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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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Men's language is as their lives.
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Speech devoted to truth should be straightforward and plain
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While we wait for life, life passes
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No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already.
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The best cure for anger is delay.
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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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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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Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers.
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I am not born from a single place. My country is the whole world.
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As fate is inexorable, and not to be moved either with tears or reproaches, an excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter; while, on the other hand, not to mourn at all is insensibility.
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A young man respects and looks up to his teachers.
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You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.
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All I desire is, that my poverty may not be a burden to myself, or make me so to others; and that is the best state of fortune that is neither directly necessitous nor far from it. A mediocrity of fortune, with gentleness of mind, will preserve us from fear or envy; which is a desirable condition; for no man wants power to do mischief.