Seneca The Younger Quotes

Fire tries gold, misery tries brave men.

All we see and admire today will burn in the universal fire that ushers in a new, just, happy world.

There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable.

Drunkenness does not create vice; it merely brings it into view.

There is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won't make the crooked straight.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so shall I choose my death when I am about to depart from life.

It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.

The gladiator is formulating his plan in the arena or essentially Too late.

It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own.

Drunkenness is nothing but a self-induced state of insanity.

See what daily exercise does for one.

How many discoveries are reserved for the ages to come when our memory shall be no more, for this world of ours contains matter for investigation for all generations.

I was not born for one corner. The whole world is my native land.

Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

If you judge, investigate.

That grief is light which can take counsel.

There is no genius free from some tincture of madness

No action will be considered blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act was dictated.

It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do so by example.

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

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

There is nothing more miserable and foolish than anticipation.

You cannot escape necessities, but you can overcome them.

Small sorrows speak great ones are silent.

A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught.

What a vile and abject thing is man if he do not raise himself above humanity.

Refuse to let the thought of death bother you: nothing is grim when we have escaped that fear.

We are all sinful. Therefore whatever we blame in another we shall find in our own bosoms.

You must know for which harbor you are headed, if you are to catch the right wind to take you there.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

Refrain from following the example of those whose craving is for attention, not their own improvement.

Economy is in itself a great source of revenue.

The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.

The foundation of the true joy is in the conscience.

Men's language is as their lives.

So live with an inferior as you would wish a superior to live with you.

A good mind is a lord of a kingdom.

I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better then the bad.

To make another person hold his tongue, be you first silent.

What difference does it make, after all, what your position in life is if you dislike it yourself?

You should keep on learning as long as there is something you do not know.

Whatever we give to the wretched, we lend to fortune.

Let me therefore live as if every moment were to be my last.

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

Some laws, though unwritten, are more firmly established than all written laws.

It is not how many books thou hast, but how good; careful reading profiteth, while that which is full of variety delighteth.