Seneca the Younger Quotes
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Refuse to let the thought of death bother you: nothing is grim when we have escaped that fear.
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Philosophy alone makes the mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us.
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The wise man lives as long as he should, not just as long as he likes.
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Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.
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Servitude seizes on few, but many seize on her.
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To be feared is to fear. No one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind.
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We are wrong in looking forward to death: in great measure it's past already.
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Small sorrows speak great ones are silent.
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Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.
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As long as you live, learn how to live.
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Don't stumble over something behind you.
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In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing.
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Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things-eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies-since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.
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When you see a man in distress, recognize him as a fellow man.
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It's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
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He is greedy of life who is not willing to die when the world is perishing around him.
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A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation...you have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it.
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Nothing is more disgraceful than that an old man should have nothing to show to prove that he has lived long, except his years.
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Of all the felicities, the most charming is that of a firm and gentle friendship. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us in all extremities. Nay, if there were no other comfort in it than the pare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single reason a man would not be without it; it is a sovereign antidote against all calamities - even against the fear of death itself.
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...the geometrician teaches me how to work out the size of my estates rather than how to work out how much a man needs in order to have enough....You geometers can calculate the area of circles, can reduce any given shape to a square, can state the distances separating starts. Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. You can define a straight line; what use is that to you if you've no idea what straightness means in life?
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Misfortune is the test of a person's merit.
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He who is penitent is almost innocent.
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The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.
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I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes. ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.