Seneca the Younger Quotes

Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; 'tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. [We must learn to control and focus the force of our imagination on the good, bright side so it is positive and constructive helping ourselves and others, rather than let its force focus on the bad, dark side so it is negative and destructive hurting ourselves and others!]

So enjoy the pleasures of the hour as not to spoil those that are to follow.

To be everywhere is to be nowhere.

Virtue hath no virtue if it be not impugned; then appeareth how great it is, of what value and power it is, when by patience it approveth what it works.

Crime oft recoils upon the author's head.

A man afraid of death will never play the part of a live man.

Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.

...nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

What madness it is for a man to starve himself to enrich his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him.

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.

The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo.

Where silence is not allowed, what then is permissible?

Economy is in itself a great source of revenue.

He that visits the sick in hopes of a legacy, but is never so friendly in all other cases, I look upon him as being no better than a raven that watches a weak sheep only to peck out its eyes.

Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

However wretched a fellow-mortal may be, he is still a member of our common species.

It is the fault of youth that it cannot restrain its own impetuosity.

There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.

Death either destroys or unhusks us. If it means liberation, better things await us when our burden s gone: if destruction, nothing at all awaits us; blessings and curses are abolished.

No emotion falls into dislike so readily as sorrow.

Lack of desire is the greatest riches.

A great fortune is a great slavery.

Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

What view is one likely to take of the state of a person's mind when his speech is wild and incoherent and knows no constraint?

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

You should rather suppose that those are involved in worthwhile duties who wish to have daily as their closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day.

Make haste to live, and consider each day a life.

The worst thing about getting old is evil men cease to fear you

No crime has been without a precedent.

Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause.

A great, a good, and a right mind is a kind of divinity lodged in flesh, and may be the blessing of a slave as well as of a prince: it came from heaven, and to heaven it must return; and it is a kind of heavenly felicity, which a pure and virtuous mind enjoys, in some degree, even upon earth.

Every one has time if he likes. Business runs after nobody: people cling to it of their own free will and think that to be busy is a proof of happiness.

Light is that grief which counsel can allay.

Although a man has so well purged his mind that nothing can trouble or deceive him any more, yet he reached his present innocence through sin.

This body is not a home, but an inn; and that only for a short time.

To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

All art is but imitation of nature.

Reason wishes that the judgement it gives be just; anger wishes that the judgement it has given seem to be just.

Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.

Why will no man confess his faults? Because he continues to indulge in them; a man cannot tell his dream till he wakes.

Anger, though concealed, is betrayed by the countenance. ?That anger is not warrantable which hath seen two suns.

Not a soul takes thought how well he may live- only how long: yet a good life might be everybody's, a long one can be nobody's.

While you teach, you learn.

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

The evil which assails us is not in the localities we inhabit but in ourselves.