Seneca the Younger Quotes
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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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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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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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No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.
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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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When one is friend on himself, also is friend of everybody.
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There is no evil that does not promise inducements. Avarice promises money; luxury, a varied assortment of pleasures; ambition, a purple robe and applause. Vices tempt you by the rewards they offer.
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You are your choices.
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Money has never yet made anyone rich.
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These individulas have riches just as we say that we 'have a fever,' when really the fever has us.
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The philosopher: he alone knows how to live for himself. He is the one, in fact, who knows the fundamental thing: how to live.
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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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We should live as if we were in public view, and think, too, as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our hearts-which someone can!
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Necessity is stronger than duty.
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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 the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.
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Prosperity asks for fidelity; adversity exacts it.
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Retirement without literary amusements is death itself, and a living tomb.
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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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Light cares speak, great ones are speechless.
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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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The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes.... The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation.
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The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.