Seneca the Younger Quotes
-
Anyone can stop a man's life, but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.
-
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.
-
Who can hope for nothing, should despair for nothing.
-
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
-
Epicurus says, "gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it." And where is the virtue that has not? But still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.
-
Chance makes a plaything of a man's life.
-
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!
-
Many men provoke others to overreach them by excessive suspicion; their extraordinary distrust in some sort justifies the deceit.
-
Upon occasion we should go as far as intoxication.... Drink washes cares away, stirs the mind from its lowest depths.... But in liberty moderation is wholesome, and so it is in wine.... We ought not indulge too often, for fear the mind contract a bad habit, yet it is right to draw it toward elation and release and to banish dull sobriety for a little.
-
It's the admirer and the watcher who provoke us to all the inanities we commit.
-
Whatsoever has exceeded its proper limit is in an unstable position.
-
Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding.
-
There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Trifling trouble find utterance; deeply felt pangs are silent.
-
No one can be despised by another until he has learned to despise himself.
-
You roll my log, and I will roll yours.
-
It is the characteristic of a weak and diseased mind to fear the unfamiliar.
-
A coward calls himself cautious, a miser thrifty.
-
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.
-
The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.
-
A good person dyes events with his own color . . . and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.
-
There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly.