Seneca the Younger Quotes

No one can have all he desires.

The world itself is too small for the covetous.

I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.

You learn to know a pilot in a storm.

Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself.

One hand washes the other.

With parsimony a little is sufficient; without it nothing is sufficient; but frugality makes a poor man rich.

There is nothing that we can properly call our own but our time, and yet everybody fools us out of it who has a mind to do it. If a man borrows a paltry sum of money, there must needs be bonds and securities, and every common civility is presently charged upon account. But he who has my time thinks he owes me nothing for it, though it be a debt that gratitude itself can never repay.

Misfortune is the test of a person's merit.

The first proof of a well-ordered mind is to be able to pause and linger within itself.

The body is not a permanent dwelling, but a sort of inn which is to be left behind when one perceives that one is a burden to the host.

The wish for healing has always been half of health.

Wisdom comes to no one by chance.

Every journey has an end.

All my life I have been seeking to climb out of the pit of my besetting sins and I cannot do it and I never will unless a hand is let down to draw me up.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

There is no fair wind for one who knows not whither he is bound.

Before old age I took care to live well; in old age I take care to die well; but to die well is to die willingly.

He worships God who knows him.

Speech is the mirror of the mind.

The part of life which we really live is short.

He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice or arms illustrates his extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Sophroniscus, but for his son, Socrates; nor of Ariosto and Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato.

Fine conduct is always spontaneous.

Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from above, so many medicinal springs do not alter the taste of the sea, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. For it maintains its balance, and over all that happens it throws its own complexion, because it is more powerful than external circumstances.

No man was ever wise by chance.

The foundation of the true joy is in the conscience.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Throughout the whole of life one must continue to learn to live and what will amaze you even more, throughout life you must learn to die. Seneca (Roman philosopher)

Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable.

Golden roofs break men's rest.

Death's the discharge of our debt of sorrow.

How can a thing possibly govern others when it cannot be governed itself?

Fortune may rob us of our wealth, not of our courage.

Successful villany is called virtue.

When you see a man in distress, recognize him as a fellow man.

If you wish to be loved, love.

To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.

Time hath often cured the wound which reason failed to heal.

Drunkenness is simply voluntary insanity.

It's a vice to trust all, and equally a vice to trust none.

You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.

The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.

The greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution; who resists to sorest temptation from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menaces and frowns; whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God is most unfaltering.

Luck never made a man wise.

If you don't know, ask. You will be a fool for the moment, but a wise man for the rest of your life.

Necessity is stronger than duty.

Let ease and rest at times be given to the weary.