Seneca the Younger Quotes
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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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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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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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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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Retirement without literary amusements is death itself, and a living tomb.
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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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No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.
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Unblest is he who thinks himself unblest.
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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 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.
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Hardly a man will you find who could live with his door open.
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We have lost morals, justice, honor, piety and faith, and that sense of shame which, once lost, can never be restored.
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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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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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There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly.
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It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and - even more surprising - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.
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It is essential to make oneself used to putting up with a little. Even the wealthy and the well provided are continually met and frustrated by difficult times and situations. It is in no man's power to have whatever he wants; but he has it in his power not to wish for what he hasn't got, and cheerfully make the most of the things that do come his way.
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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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Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.
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It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
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Vice may be learnt, even without a teacher
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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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Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.
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Let him that hath done the good office conceal it; let him that received it disclose it.