Seneca the Younger Quotes
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If I only have the will to be grateful, I am so.
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We ought to take outdoor walks, to refresh and raise our spirits by deep breathing in the open air.
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When once ambition has passed its natural limits, its progress is boundless.
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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.
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Misfortune is the test of a person's merit.
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Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.
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It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
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The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.
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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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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.
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Necessity is stronger than duty.
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There is nothing wrong with changing a plan when the situation has changed.
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If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
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He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before any cause for sorrow has arisen.
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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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Light cares speak, great ones are speechless.
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Life without literary studies is death.
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Money has never yet made anyone rich.
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We are at best but stewards of what we falsely call our own; yet avarice is so insatiable that it is not in the power of liberality to content it.
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When one is friend on himself, also is friend of everybody.
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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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Happy is the man who can endure the highest and lowest fortune. He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power.
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There are many things akin to highest deity that are still obscure. Some may be too subtle for our powers of comprehension, others imperceptible to us because such exalted majesty conceals itself in the holiest part of its sanctuary, forbidding access to any power save that of the spirit. How many heavenly bodies revolve unseen by human eye!
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The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you give it only what you owe, and not as much as you can.