Seneca the Younger Quotes
-
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.
-
War I abhor, and yet how sweet The sound along the marching street Of drum and fife, and I forget Wet eyes of widows, and forget Broken old mothers, and the whole Dark butchery without a soul.
-
The ascent from earth to heaven is not easy.
-
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.
-
It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
-
He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before any cause for sorrow has arisen.
-
The greatest power of ruling consists in the exercise of self-control.
-
We have lost morals, justice, honor, piety and faith, and that sense of shame which, once lost, can never be restored.
-
It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.
-
Apples taste sweetest when they're going.
-
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
-
I am ashamed of my master and not of my servitude.
-
To rule yourself is the ultimate power
-
No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.
-
You are your choices.
-
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.
-
Our minds must relax: they will rise better and keener after rest. Just as you must not force fertile farmland, as uninterrupted productivity will soon exhaust it, so constant effort will sap our mental vigour, while a short period of rest and relaxation will restore our powers. Unremitting effort leads to a kind of mental dullness and lethargy.
-
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.
-
Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insuating and insidious something that elicits secrets from us just like love or liquor.
-
Remember, not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land.
-
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.
-
There is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won't make the crooked straight.
-
The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
-
During difficult times and after mistakes and failures it is helpful to remember ... Oftentimes calamity turns to our advantage and great ruins make way for greater glories.