Seneca The Younger Quotes
I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.
To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.
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.
Many men provoke others to overreach them by excessive suspicion; their extraordinary distrust in some sort justifies the deceit.
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!
The highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom - that deed and word should be in accord.
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!
Nature does not turn out her work according to a single pattern; she prides herself upon her power of variation.
He invites the commission of a crime who does not forbid it, when it is in his power to do so.
Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.
It is within the power of every man to live his life nobly, but of no man to live forever. Yet so many of us hope that life will go on forever, and so few aspire to live nobly.
Who shrinks from knowledge of his calamities but aggravates his fear; troubles half seen, shall torture all the more.
The declaration of love may come sooner than expected. Take time before you reciprocate as this may simply be a statement of what they expect from you.
No man is born wise; but wisdom and virtue require a tutor; though we can easily learn to be vicious without a master.
Human nature is so constituted that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the remembrance of the latter soon passes away, while that of the former is treasured in the memory.
Nothing is more disgraceful than that an old man should have nothing to show to prove that he has lived long, except his years.