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.
Seneca the YoungerYou have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.
Seneca the YoungerI am like a book, with pages that have stuck together for want of use: my mind needs unpacking and the truths stored within must be turned over from time to time, to be ready when occasion demands.
Seneca the YoungerIt is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
Seneca the YoungerLet us fight the battle-retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.
Seneca the YoungerCato, being scurrilously treated by a low and vicious fellow, quietly said to him, "A contest between us is very unequal, for thou canst bear ill language with ease, and return it with pleasure; but to me it is unusual to hear, and disagreeable to speak it." There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.
Seneca the YoungerThere are many things akin to highest deity that are still obscure. Some may be too subtle for our powers of comprehension, others imperceptible to us because such exalted majesty conceals itself in the holiest part of its sanctuary, forbidding access to any power save that of the spirit. How many heavenly bodies revolve unseen by human eye!
Seneca the YoungerIn the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases.
Seneca the YoungerIt goes far toward making a man faithful to let him understand that you think him so; and he that does but suspect I will deceive him, gives me a sort of right to do so.
Seneca the YoungerHe grieves more than is necessary who grieves before any cause for sorrow has arisen.
Seneca the YoungerHealth is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
Seneca the YoungerIt is not how many books thou hast, but how good; careful reading profiteth, while that which is full of variety delighteth.
Seneca the YoungerThe wise man will always reflect concerning the quality not the quantity of life.
Seneca the YoungerNo one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character.
Seneca the YoungerWhat if a man save my life with a draught that was prepared to poison me? The providence of the issue does not at all discharge the obliquity of the intent. And the same reason holds good even in religion itself. It is not the incense, or the offering that is acceptable to God, but the purity and devotion of the worshipper.
Seneca the YoungerThat which we are not permitted to have we delight in; that which we can have is disregarded.
Seneca the YoungerWhat difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.
Seneca the YoungerIt is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
Seneca the YoungerTo be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
Seneca the Younger