Seneca the Younger Quotes
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If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
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If ever you come upon a grove of ancient trees which have grown to an exceptional height, shutting out a view of sky by a veil of pleached and intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot and your marvel at the thick unbroken shade in the midst of the open spaces, will prove to you the presence of deity.
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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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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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Retirement without literary amusements is death itself, and a living tomb.
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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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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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A crowd of fellow-sufferers is a miserable kind of comfort.
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Prosperity asks for fidelity; adversity exacts it.
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The part of life which we really live is short.
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I am ashamed of my master and not of my servitude.
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There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly.
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As fate is inexorable, and not to be moved either with tears or reproaches, an excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter; while, on the other hand, not to mourn at all is insensibility.
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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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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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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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The great pilot can sail even when his canvass is rent.
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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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A good person dyes events with his own color . . . and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.
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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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Whatsoever has exceeded its proper limit is in an unstable position.
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Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insuating and insidious something that elicits secrets from us just like love or liquor.
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Chance makes a plaything of a man's life.
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No one can keep a mask on long.