Seneca the Younger Quotes
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The best cure for anger is delay.
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The worse a person is the less he feels it.
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Truth never perishes.
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The bounty of nature is too little for the greedy person.
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The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
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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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What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it.
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Love of action is not industry.
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If you are bent on assuming a pose and never reveal yourself to anyone frankly, in the fashion of many who live a false life that is all made up for show; for it is torturous to be constantly watching oneself and be fearful of being caught out of our usual role. And we are never free from concern if we think that every time anyone looks at us he is always taking-our measure; for many things happen that strip off our pretence against our will, and, though all this attention to self is successful, yet the life of those who live under a mask cannot be happy and without anxiety.
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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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It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in what condition soever we are, and money signifies no more to it than it does to the gods.
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Great men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
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Lack of desire is the greatest riches.
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He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.
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Philosophy is good advice, and no one gives good advice at the top of his lungs.
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Corporeal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.
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There are more people abusive to others than lie open to abuse themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.
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Reasons for anxiety will never be lacking, whether born of prosperity or of wretchedness; life pushes on in a succession of engrossments. We shall always pray for leisure.
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We are more easily led part by part to an understanding of the whole.
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Life, if thou knowest how to use it, is long enough.
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Everything hangs on one's thinking.
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Death: There's nothing bad about it at all except the thing that comes before it-the fear of it.
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As the mother's womb holds us for ten months, making us ready, not for the womb itself, but for life, just so, through our lives, we are making ourselves ready for another birth...Therefore look forward without fear to that appointed hour- the last hour of the body, but not of the soul...That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.
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Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.