Seneca Quotes

It is not goodness to be better than the worst.

A man afraid of death will never play the part of a live man.

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

Let him who has granted a favour speak not of it; let him who has received one, proclaim it.

The way to good conduct is never too late.

Vice may be learnt, even without a teacher

I would rather be sick than idle.

Tranqility is a certain quality of mind, which no condition or fortune can either exalt or depress.

What you think is the summit is only a step up

He who does not want to die should not want to live. For life is tendered to us with the proviso of death. Life is the way to this destination.

The man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow; and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

Truths open to everyone, and the claims aren't all staked yet.

There is no genius without a mixture of madness.

Philosophy is the health of the mind.

Remember, not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land.

I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.

Everything may happen.

The greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution.

Nobody becomes guilty by fate.

It is equally a fault to believe all men or to believe none.

We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.

He will live ill who does not know how to die well.

To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.

We are wrong in looking forward to death: in great measure it's past already.

...nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

The man who can be compelled knows not how to die.

The book-keeping of benefits is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake of giving.

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

Without an adversary prowess shrivels. We see how great and efficient it really is only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of.

Death takes us piecemeal, not at a gulp.

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

The Germans, a race eager for war.

Such is the blindness, nay the insanity of mankind, that some men are driven to death by the fear of it.

On entering a temple we assume all signs of reverence. How much more reverent then should we be before the heavenly bodies, the stars, the very nature of God!

Chance makes a plaything of a man's life.

Do what you should, not what you may.

The highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom - that deed and word should be in accord.

Virtue with some is nothing but successful temerity.

It is a proof of nobility of mind to despise injuries.

We should live as if we were in public view, and think, too, as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our hearts-which someone can!

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

The young man must store up, the old man must use.

No book can be so good, as to be profitable when negligently read.

He sins not, who is not wilfully a sinner.

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.

Nature does not turn out her work according to a single pattern; she prides herself upon her power of variation.

No one can hold absolute power for long, controlled power endures.

He invites the commission of a crime who does not forbid it, when it is in his power to do so.

He may as well not thank at all, who thanks when none are by.

Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.