The wise man lacked nothing but needed a great number of things, whereas the fool, on the other hand, needs nothing (for he does not know how to use anything) but lacks everything.
Seneca the YoungerNo tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
Seneca the YoungerThe greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon tomorrow and wastes today
Seneca the YoungerDo the best you can . . . enjoy the present . . . rest satisfied with what you have.
Seneca the YoungerJust where death is expecting you is something we cannot know; so, for your part, expect him everywhere.
Seneca the YoungerStraightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness. The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort. To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.
Seneca the YoungerWhat difference does it make, after all, what your position in life is if you dislike it yourself?
Seneca the YoungerHuman society is like an arch, kept from falling by the mutual pressure of its parts
Seneca the YoungerThe law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.
Seneca the YoungerWhen thou hast profited so much that thou respectest even thyself, thou mayst let go thy tutor.
Seneca the YoungerWe deliberate about the parcels of life, but not about life itself, and so we arrive all unawares at its different epochs, and have the trouble of beginning all again. And so finally it is that we do not walk as men confidently towards death, but let death come suddenly upon us.
Seneca the YoungerWe are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them.
Seneca the YoungerWhat progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend. That is progress indeed
Seneca the YoungerCling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always to take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.
Seneca the YoungerVirtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by action. If this be true, not only do the doctrines of wisdom help us but the precepts also, which check and banish our emotions by a sort of official decree.
Seneca the YoungerA physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.
Seneca the Younger