Seneca the Younger Quotes
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It is a youthful failing to be unable to control one's impulses.
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The most imperious masters over their own servants are at the same time the most abject slaves to the servants of others.
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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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Prosperity asks for fidelity; adversity exacts it.
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A thing seriously pursued affords true enjoyment.
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Tranqility is a certain quality of mind, which no condition or fortune can either exalt or depress.
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Be not dazzled by beauty, but look for those inward qualities which are lasting.
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As Lucretius says: 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.' But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves
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Greatness stands upon a precipice, and if prosperity carries a man never so little beyond his poise, it overbears and dashes him to pieces.
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Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
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Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.
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Many men provoke others to overreach them by excessive suspicion; their extraordinary distrust in some sort justifies the deceit.
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Resistance to oppression is second nature.
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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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Remember, not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land.
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Misfortunes, in fine, cannot be avoided; but they may be sweetened, if not overcome, and our lives made happy by philosophy.
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To rule yourself is the ultimate power
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I will have a care of being a slave to myself, for it is a perpetual, a shameful, and the heaviest of all servitudes; and this may be done by moderate desires.
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Who can hope for nothing, should despair for nothing.
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The most happy ought to wish for death.
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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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A dwarf is small even if he stands on a mountain; a colossus keeps his height, even if he stands in a well.
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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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No man is nobler born than another, unless he is born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition. They who make such a parade with their family pictures and pedigrees, are, properly speaking, rather to be called noted or notorious than noble persons. I thought it right to say this much, in order to repel the insolence of men who depend entirely upon chance and accidental circumstances for distinction, and not at all on public services and personal merit.