Seneca The Younger Quotes

To make a commencement requires a mental effort.

Teach the art of living well.

Love of action is not industry.

He who blushes at riding in a rattletrap, will boast when he rides in style.

Adversity finds at last the man whom she has often passed by.

Anger, though concealed, is betrayed by the countenance. ?That anger is not warrantable which hath seen two suns.

Not to feel one's misfortunes is not human, not to bear them is not manly.

No one's so old that he mayn't with decency hope for one more day.

Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come . . . . Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.

It’s in the very trickery that it pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.

Certain laws have not been written, but they are more fixed than all the written laws.

This is the law of benefits between men; the one ought to forget at once what was given, and the other ought never to forget what he has received.

Such as the chain of causes we call Fate, such is the chain of wishes: one links on to another; the whole man is bound in the chain of wishing for ever.

Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.

It is sometimes pleasant even to act like a madman.

A hated government does not long survive.

It is well to be born either a king or a fool.

We have not to talk, but to steer the vessel.

I am not born from a single place. My country is the whole world.

Fortune may rob us of our wealth, not of our courage.

For what else is Nature but God and the Divine Reason that pervades the whole universe and all its parts.

No one can wear a mask for very long.

Unfamiliarity lends weight to misfortune, and there was never a man whose grief was not heightened by surprise.

Those that are a friend to themselves are sure to be a friend to all.

Those who pass their lives in foreign travel find they contract many ties of hospitality, but form no friendships.

What is required is not a lot words, but effectual ones.

As many servants so many enemies.

The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you give it only what you owe, and not as much as you can.

The real compensation of a right action is inherent in having performed it.

People do not die - they kill themselves.

Those whom fortune has never favored are more joyful than those whom she has deserted.

Death either destroys or unhusks us. If it means liberation, better things await us when our burden s gone: if destruction, nothing at all awaits us; blessings and curses are abolished.

The many speak highly of you, but have you really any grounds for satisfaction with yourself if you are the kind of person the many understand?

Men practice war; beasts do not.

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

There is no fair wind for one who knows not whither he is bound.

Nemo tam divos habuit faventes, Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri. Nobody has ever found the gods so much his friends that he can promise himself another day.

Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis. No time is too short for the wicked to injure their neighbors.

Corporeal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.

Although a man has so well purged his mind that nothing can trouble or deceive him any more, yet he reached his present innocence through sin.

Crime oft recoils upon the author's head.

You roll my log, and I will roll yours.

True love hates and will not bear delay.

Whatever is to make us better and happy God has placed either openly before us or close to us.

Light cares speak, great ones are speechless. -Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent

There is nothing after death, and death itself is nothing.

Apples taste sweetest when they're going.

It is bad to live for necessity; but there is no necessity to live in necessity.

I do not sacrifice, but lend myself to business.

The mind does not easily unlearn what it has been long in learning.