Seneca the Younger Quotes
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There is nothing more despicable than an old man who has no other proof than his age to offer of his having lived long in the world.
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You roll my log, and I will roll yours.
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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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To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.
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For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold.
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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.
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The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.
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No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.
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People do not die - they kill themselves.
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As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit
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There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly.
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He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.
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He shows a greater mind who does not restrain his laughter, than he who does not deny his tears.
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Abstinence is easier than temperance.
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It is the characteristic of a weak and diseased mind to fear the unfamiliar.
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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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In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul.
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To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.
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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.
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It is well to be born either a king or a fool.
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Make haste to live, and consider each day a life.
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He who seeks wisdom is a wise man; he who thinks he has found it is mad.
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Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself.
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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