Seneca the Younger Quotes
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He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before any cause for sorrow has arisen.
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It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions; beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business.
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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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Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so shall I choose my death when I am about to depart from life.
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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.
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True wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in molding our conduct according to her laws and model.
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It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
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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 man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow; and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.
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There is nothing wrong with changing a plan when the situation has changed.
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Who-only let him be a man and intent upon honor-is not eager for the honorable ordeal and prompt to assume perilous duties? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?
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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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Be not dazzled by beauty, but look for those inward qualities which are lasting.
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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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A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.
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It is never too late to turn from the errors of our ways: He who repents of his sins is almost innocent.
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To rule yourself is the ultimate power
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Hardly a man will you find who could live with his door open.
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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 is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won't make the crooked straight.
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No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
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Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.
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Remember, not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land.
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Dead, we become the lumber of the world, And to that mass of matter shall be swept Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.