Seneca the Younger Quotes

Self-denial is the best riches.

Everything in art is but a copy of nature.

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

He who is penitent is almost innocent.

He deserves praise who does not what he may, but what he ought.

The place one's in, though, doesn't make any contribution to peace of mind: it's the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself.

Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns.

The thing that matters is not what you bear, but how you bear it

Many men provoke others to overreach them by excessive suspicion; their extraordinary distrust in some sort justifies the deceit.

Servitude seizes on few, but many seize on her.

Let no man give advice to others that he has not first given himself.

It is pleasant at times to play the madman.

The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company

We haven't time to spare to hear whether it was between Italy and Sicily that he ran into a storm or somewhere outside the world we know-when every day we're running into our own storms, spiritual storms, and driven by vice into all the troubles that Ulysses ever knew.

An action will not be right unless the will be right; for from thence is the action derived. Again, the will will not be right unless the disposition of the mind be right; for from thence comes the will.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart.

Nothing is so contemptible as the sentiments of the mob.

We have been born under a monarchy; to obey God is freedom.

When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.

Auditur et altera pars. (The other side shall be heard as well.)

The best way to do good to ourselves is to do it to others; the right way to gather is to scatter.

What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught.

No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy. Even in those cases which put us out of wits, it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss that troubles us.

He, who holds out but a doubtful hope of succour to the afflicted, denies it.

He is ungrateful who denies that he has received a kindness which has been bestowed upon him; he is ungrateful who conceals it; he is ungrateful who makes no return for it; most ungrateful of all is he who forgets it.

Study rather to fill your mind than your coffers; knowing that gold and silver were originally mingled with dirt, until avarice or ambition parted them.

Unjust rule does not last forever.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

... frugality makes a poor man rich.

Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.

The best ideas are common property.

This life is only a prelude to eternity.

Vice may be learnt, even without a teacher

Life's neither a good nor an evil: it's a field for good and evil.

Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness.

Who-only let him be a man and intent upon honor-is not eager for the honorable ordeal and prompt to assume perilous duties? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

There's no delight in owning anything unshared.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

Life without the courage to die is slavery.

The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

In whatever direction you turn, you will see God coming to meet you; nothing is void of him, he himself fills all his work.