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Seneca the Younger Quotes
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – A.D. 65), often known simply as Seneca, or Seneca the Younger, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and humorist. He was the son of Seneca the Elder.
Philosophers Playwrights Poets Satirists Also known as: Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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408 quotes
We are weak, watery beings standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting.
As our acts and our thoughts are, so will our lives be.
For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.
Do you seek Alcides' equal? None is, except himself.
To be angry with a man is to hate him; to hate him is to wish him harm; but to wish him well, even if he has done you harm, is the mark of a great mind.
Unrighteous fortune seldom spares the highest worth; no one with safety can long front so frequent perils. Whom calamity oft passes by she finds at last.
Non faciunt meliorem equum aurei freni.
That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.
Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in the arms of liberty.
I forbid you to be cast down or depressed. It is not enough if you do not shrink from work; ask for it.
“You will have less money.” Yes, and less trouble. “Less influence.” Yes, and less envy.
The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.
Mucius put his hand into the fire. It is painful to be burned; but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself!
But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured.
Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.
Would you know what makes men greedy for the future? It is because no one has yet found himself.
The mind must be indulged, and leisure must be given from time to time, which is the place of food and strength.
To no creature besides man has been given wisdom, foresight, industry, and reflection.
It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death.
It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great.
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