Seneca the Younger Quotes

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

We learn not in the school, but in life.

Those whom fortune has never favored are more joyful than those whom she has deserted.

Life is never incomplete if it is an honorable one. At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is whole.

The deep waters of time will flow over us: only a few men of genius will lift a head above the surface, and though doomed eventually to pass into the same silence, will fight against oblivion and for a long time hold their own.

If you are surprised at the number of our maladies, count our cooks.

Human affairs are like a chess-game: only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players. Life is like an earthen pot: only when it is shattered, does it manifest its emptiness.

A good mind is a lord of a kingdom.

The most imperious masters over their own servants are at the same time the most abject slaves to the servants of others.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

An old man at school is a contemptible and ridiculous object.

We are as answerable for what we give as for what we receive; nay, the misplacing of a benefit is worse than the not receiving of it; for the one is another person's fault, but the other is mine.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

He who fears from near at hand often fears less.

The real compensation of a right action is inherent in having performed it.

Humanity is fortunate, because no man is unhappy except by his own fault.

The best cure for anger is delay.

Drunkenness does not create vice; it merely brings it into view.

Delay not; swift the flight of fortune's greatest favours.

To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.

No one can hold absolute power for long, controlled power endures.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.

But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.

He that lays down precepts for the governing of our lives, and moderating our passions, obliges humanity not only in the present, but in all future generations.

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult

If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.

Fidelity purchased with money, money can destroy.

There is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won't make the crooked straight.

Pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most.

A dwarf can stand on a mountain, he's no taller.

What a vile and abject thing is man if he do not raise himself above humanity.

Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.

We are more easily led part by part to an understanding of the whole. -Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur

Everything may happen.

Prudence will punish to prevent crime, not to avenge it.

Prudence and love cannot be mixed; you can end love, but never moderate it.

The largest part of goodness is the will to become good.

It is sweet to mingle tears with tears; Griefs, where they wound in solitude, Wound more deeply.

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.

It's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

No book can be so good, as to be profitable when negligently read.

How much longer are you going to be a pupil? From now on do some teaching as well.

The wise man will not pardon any crime that ought to be punished, but he will accomplish, in a nobler way, all that is sought in pardoning. He will spare some and watch over some, because of their youth, and others on account of their ignorance. His clemency will not fall short of justice, but will fulfill it perfectly.

The anger of those in authority is always weighty.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

It is safer to offend certain men than it is to oblige them; for as proof that they owe nothing they seek recourse in hatred.