Seneca quotes
4 BC – 65 AD Spanish-born Roman Statesman philosopherCourage leads to heaven; fear leads to death.
Seneca
Courage
Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.
Seneca
Fate
Sovereignty over any foreign land is insecure.
Seneca
Empire
He that does good to another does good also to himself.
Seneca
Cooperation
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
Seneca
Danger
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Seneca
Difficulties
A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.
Seneca
Death and Dying
Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.
Seneca
Death and Dying
The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
Seneca
Death and Dying
Economy is too late when you are at the bottom of your purse.
Seneca
Economy and Economics
Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.
Seneca
Fate
Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.
Seneca
Courage
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Seneca
Courage
Fortune can take away riches, but not courage.
Seneca
Courage
Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.
Seneca
Crime and Criminals
He has committed the crime who profits by it.
Seneca
Crime and Criminals
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Seneca
Crime and Criminals
The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. It is more powerful than external circumstances.
Seneca
Courage
The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.
Seneca
Fate
It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.
Seneca
Futility
Disease is not of the body but of the place.
Seneca
Disease
It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.
Seneca
Greatness
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
Seneca
Courage
In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul.
Seneca
Invention and Inventor
The road to learning by precept is long, but by example short and effective.
Seneca
Example
There is no delight in owning anything unshared.
Seneca
Giving
If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him.
Seneca
Goals
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 great 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.
Seneca
Happiness
For greed all nature is too little.
Seneca
Greed
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
Seneca
Giving
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
Seneca
Goals
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.
Seneca
Grief
Do everything as in the eye of another.
Seneca
Eyes
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.
Seneca
Grief
Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.
Seneca
God
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Seneca
Goals
So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.
Seneca
Life and Living
I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?
Seneca
Life and Living
Life is warfare.
Seneca
Life and Living
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
Seneca
Life and Living
If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.
Seneca
Failure
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.
Seneca
Evil
Even if it is to be, what end do you serve by running to distress?
Seneca
Expectation
He who is brave is free.
Seneca
Freedom
Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.
Seneca
Freedom
The pleasures of the palate deal with us like the Egyptian thieves, who strangle those whom they embrace.
Seneca
Glutton
A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.
Seneca
Individuality
Where the fear is, happiness is not.
Seneca
Fear
There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
Seneca
Gratitude
Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.
Seneca
Friends and Friendship
A person s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.
Seneca
Fear
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Seneca
Hatred
No one can be despised by another until he has learned to despise himself.
Seneca
Hatred
Those that are a friend to themselves are sure to be a friend to all.
Seneca
Friends and Friendship
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
Seneca
Excellence
A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.
Seneca
Fools and Foolishness
It is another s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
Seneca
Gratitude
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
Seneca
Gifts
See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.
Seneca
Gratitude
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
Seneca
Fear
The foremost art of kings is the ability to endure hatred.
Seneca
Kings
A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.
Seneca
Liberty
Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.
Seneca
Indecision
If you would judge, understand.
Seneca
Judgment and Judges
May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.
Seneca
Justice
Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.
Seneca
Memory
Remember that pain has this most excellent quality. If prolonged it cannot be severe, and if severe it cannot be prolonged.
Seneca
Pain
What once were vices are manners now.
Seneca
Manners
Pain, scorned by yonder gout-ridden wretch, endured by yonder dyspeptic in the midst of his dainties, borne bravely by the girl in travail. Slight thou art, if I can bear thee, short thou art if I cannot bear thee!
Seneca
Pain
If you judge, investigate.
Seneca
Judgment and Judges
He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.
Seneca
Leaders and Leadership
He is a king who fears nothing, he is a king who desires nothing!
Seneca
Kings
Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness
Seneca
Kindness
It is medicine, not scenery, for which a sick man must go searching.
Seneca
Medicine
That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.
Seneca
Learning
It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.
Seneca
Laughter
Nothing is so contemptible as the sentiments of the mob.
Seneca
Masses
Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.
Seneca
Night
Who can hope for nothing, should despair for nothing.
Seneca
Hope
No one is laughable who laughs at himself.
Seneca
Laughter
The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.
Seneca
Liberty
Leisure without literature is death and burial alive.
Seneca
Literature
Fidelity purchased with money, money can destroy.
Seneca
Loyalty
Whatever is well said by another, is mine.
Seneca
Imitation
Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding.
Seneca
Love
If you live according to the dictates of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of man, you will never be rich.
Seneca
Nature
If you wish to be loved; Love!
Seneca
Love
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
Seneca
Insults
But it is a pretty thing to see what money will do!
Seneca
Money
I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.
Seneca
Morality
Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.
Seneca
Pleasure
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
Seneca
Modesty
Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one.
Seneca
Philosophers and Philosophy
That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
Seneca
Ostentation
So enjoy present pleasures as to not mar those to come.
Seneca
Pleasure
Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.
Seneca
Prayer
What is true belongs to me!
Seneca
Truth
A great fortune is a great slavery.
Seneca
Money
The mind is a matter over every kind of fortune; itself acts in both ways, being the cause of its own happiness and misery.
Seneca
Mind
Whenever you hold a fellow creature in distress, remember that he is a man.
Seneca
Tolerance
That moderation which nature prescribes, which limits our desires by resources restricted to our needs, has abandoned the field; it has now come to this -- that to want only what is enough is a sign both of boorishness and of utter destitution.
Seneca
Moderation
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.
Seneca
Procrastination
It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and prefer things in measure to things in excess.
Seneca
Moderation
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
Seneca
Prayer
The first step in a person s salvation is knowledge of their sin.
Seneca
Salvation
Not he who has little, but he whose wishes more, is poor.
Seneca
Poverty and The Poor
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
Seneca
Power
If you sit in judgment, investigate, if you sit in supreme power, sit in command.
Seneca
Power
He is the most powerful who has himself, in his power.
Seneca
Power
Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.
Seneca
Power
There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.
Seneca
Poverty and The Poor
The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.
Seneca
Politicians and Politics
To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.
Seneca
Safety
What should a wise person do when given a blow? Same as Cato when he was attacked; not fire up or revenge the insult., or even return the blow, but simply ignore it.
Seneca
Revenge
When ever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.
Seneca
Speakers and Speaking
If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.
Seneca
Sensuality
When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.
Seneca
Speakers and Speaking
Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?
Seneca
Restraint
The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.
Seneca
Punishment
Every guilty person is his own hangman.
Seneca
Punishment
There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
Seneca
Punishment
Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability.
Seneca
Security
What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember.
Seneca
Suffering
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
Seneca
Suffering
He who repents of having sinned is almost innocent.
Seneca
Repentance
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.
Seneca
Success
Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.
Seneca
Success
Time discovered truth.
Seneca
Time and Time Management
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.
Seneca
Time and Time Management
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
Seneca
Slavery
It is part of the cure to wish to be cured.
Seneca
Remedies
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
Seneca
Shame
The acquisition of riches has been to many not an end to their miseries, but a change in them: The fault is not in the riches, but the disposition.
Seneca
Riches
It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.
Seneca
Sin
A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.
Seneca
Sin
Many shed tears merely for show, and have dry eyes when no one s around to observe them.
Seneca
Tears
Other men s sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs.
Seneca
Self-knowledge
Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can t find.
Seneca
Proverbs
Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?
Seneca
Purpose
I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
Seneca
Quotations
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
Seneca
Service
What madness it is for a man to starve himself to enrich his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him.
Seneca
Service
There s one blessing only, the source and cornerstone of beatitude -- confidence in self.
Seneca
Self-confidence
Those who boast of their decent, brag on what they owe to others.
Seneca
Ancestry
No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.
Seneca
Ancestry
As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man s life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.
Seneca
Age and Aging
There is nothing more despicable than an old man who has no other proof than his age to offer of his having lived long in the world.
Seneca
Age and Aging
Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
Seneca
Advice
He who boasts of his descent, praises the deed of another.
Seneca
Ancestry
Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.
Seneca
Conversation
Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Seneca
Anger
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca
Appreciation
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
Seneca
Anger
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
Seneca
Conflict
Happy the man who can endure the highest and the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power.
Seneca
Contentment
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
Seneca
Anger
It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.
Seneca
Ambition
Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
Seneca
Anger
Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.
Seneca
Architecture
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.
Seneca
Adversity
Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
Seneca
Alcohol and Alcoholism
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.
Seneca
Anticipation
The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
Seneca
Adversity
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
Seneca
Anxiety
There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
Seneca
Anxiety
All art is an imitation of nature.
Seneca
Arts and Artists
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
Seneca
Adversity
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Seneca
Adversity
There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.
Seneca
Appearance
It s the admirer and the watcher who provoke us to all the inanities we commit.
Seneca
Audiences
Calamity is virtue s opportunity.
Seneca
Calamity
We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.
Seneca
Ask
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may mot be subdued by discipline.
Seneca
Discipline
The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
Seneca
Adversity
No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.
Seneca
Will and Will Power
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Seneca
Writers and Writing
It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.
Seneca
Youth
The sun also shines on the wicked.
Seneca
Wickedness
What were once vices are the fashion of the day.
Seneca
Vice
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Seneca
Weakness
What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
Seneca
Wealth
Why do people not confess vices? It is because they have not yet laid them aside. It is a waking person only who can tell their dreams.
Seneca
Vice
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life -- in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
Seneca
Wisdom