Seneca the Younger Quotes
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No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character.
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Light is that grief which counsel can allay.
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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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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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While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
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Whoever has nothing to hope, let him despair of nothing.
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The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.
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In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing.
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Go on and increase in valor, O boy! this is the path to immortality.
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The most happy ought to wish for death.
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If I only have the will to be grateful, I am so.
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When once ambition has passed its natural limits, its progress is boundless.
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Light cares speak, great ones are speechless.
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Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
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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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When thou hast profited so much that thou respectest even thyself, thou mayst let go thy tutor.
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The book-keeping of benefits is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake of giving.
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The physician cannot prescribe by letter, he must feel the pulse.
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It is only luxury and avarice that make poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business, and when we have provided against cold, hunger, and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.
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It’s in the very trickery that it pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.
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You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.
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No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.
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When one is friend on himself, also is friend of everybody.
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Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the wicked; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law.