Seneca the younger quotes

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.

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.

You cease to be afraid when you cease to hope; for hope is accompanied by fear.

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

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 are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them.

There is nothing more miserable and foolish than anticipation.

The man who thinks only of his own generation is born for few.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult

We learn not in the school, but in life.

It is never too late to turn from the errors of our ways: He who repents of his sins is almost innocent.

The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.

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

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

Wisdom comes to no one by chance.

Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.

While we teach, we learn.

Everyone rushes his life on, and suffers from a yearning for the future and a boredom with the present. But that man who devotes every hour to his own needs, who plans every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears tomorrow.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

No 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.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

He who seeks wisdom is a wise man; he who thinks he has found it is mad.

Be not dazzled by beauty, but look for those inward qualities which are lasting.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and pertubations; to understand and do our duties to God and man, and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the future.

After death there is nothing.

The path of increase is slow, but the road to ruin is rapid.

True happiness is...to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.

Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life.

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

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.

Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp, be carried to such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.

Long is the road to learning by precepts, but short and successful by examples.

The important thing about a problem is not its solution, but the strength we gain in finding the solution

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

You are your choices.

Speech is the mirror of the mind.

What's the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.

The great thing is to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.

The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon tomorrow and wastes today

Everything hangs on one's thinking.

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

To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.

No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is to be expecting evil before it comes.

Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.

A man who has taken your time recognises no debt; yet it is the one he can never repay.

If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it to yourself.

Time discovers truth. Time heals what reason cannot.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

God is near you, is with you, is inside you.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.

When you die, it will not be because you are sick, but because you were alive.

The greatest power of ruling consists in the exercise of self-control.

There in no one more unfortunate than the man who has never been unfortunate. for it has never been in his power to try himself.

There is nothing wrong with changing a plan when the situation has changed.

It is never too late to learn what is always necessary to know.

The person you are matters more than the place to which you go.

Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers.

He who is brave is free.

Those alone are wise who know how to love.

Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.

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.

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.

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.

Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers.

Eyes will not see when the heart wishes them to be blind.

He is a king who fears nothing, he is a king who desires nothing!

To govern was to serve, not to rule.

He is most powerful who governs himself.

A good person dyes events with his own color . . . and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.

The most miserable mortals are they that deliver themselves up to their palates, or to their lusts; the pleasure is short, and turns presently nauseous, and the end of it is either shame or repentance.

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.

Retire into yourself as much as possible. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one. People learn as they teach.

Luck is preparation multiplied by opportunity.

A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation...you have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it.

Find a path or make one.

No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.

If thou wishest to get rid of thy evil propensities, thou must keep far from evil companions.

Many things have fallen only to rise higher.

Don't stumble over something behind you.

If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.

It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.

The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.

He who asks with timidity invites a refusal.

To be feared is to fear. No one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind.

Men can be divided into 2 groups: one that goes ahead and achieves something, and one that comes after and criticizes.

We are born to lose and to perish, to hope and to fear, to vex ourselves and others; and there is no antidote against a common calamity but virtue; for the foundation of true joy is in the conscience.

Why will no man confess his faults? Because he continues to indulge in them; a man cannot tell his dream till he wakes.

The best cure for anger is delay.

As was his language so was his life.

Fire proves gold, adversity proves men.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

It's all in your headJ you have the power to make things seem hard or easy or even amusing. The choice is yours.

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

He, who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decides justly, cannot be considered just.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

No one can keep a mask on long.

The Best sign of Wisdom is the consistency between the words and deeds.

If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.

The best ideas are common property.

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

If you live according to nature, you never will be poor; if according to the world's caprice, you will never be rich.

No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.

As the mother's womb holds us for ten months, making us ready, not for the womb itself, but for life, just so, through our lives, we are making ourselves ready for another birth...Therefore look forward without fear to that appointed hour- the last hour of the body, but not of the soul...That day, which you fear as being the end of all things, is the birthday of your eternity.

A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.

To forgive all is as inhuman as to forgive none

Many person might have achieved wisdom had they not supposed that they already possessed it.

Associate with people who are likely to improve you.

The wise man will always reflect concerning the quality not the quantity of life.

What were once vices are the fashion of the day.