Seneca the Younger Quotes
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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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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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He that by harshness of nature rules his family with an iron hand is as truly a tyrant as he who misgoverns a nation.
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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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Long is the road to learning by precepts, but short and successful by examples.
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Apples taste sweetest when they're going.
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The chief bond of the soldier is his oath of allegiance and love for the flag.
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The body is not a permanent dwelling, but a sort of inn which is to be left behind when one perceives that one is a burden to the host.
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No one can be despised by another until he has learned to despise himself.
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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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Necessity is stronger than duty.
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Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors.
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Human nature is so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in the memory.
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The sun shines even on the wicked.
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No man ever became wise by chance.
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Resistance to oppression is second nature.
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It is man's duty to live in conformity with the divine will, and this means, firstly, bringing his life into line with 'nature's laws', and secondly, resigning himself completely and uncomplainingly to whatever fate may send him. Only by living thus, and not setting too high a value on things which can at any moment be taken away from him, can he discover that true, unshakeable peace and contentment to which ambition, luxury and above all avarice are among the greatest obstacles.
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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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Anyone can stop a man's life, but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.
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He invites the commission of a crime who does not forbid it, when it is in his power to do so.
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Be not dazzled by beauty, but look for those inward qualities which are lasting.
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A benefit is estimated according to the mind of the giver.
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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.