Seneca The Younger Quotes

One must steer, not talk.

You talk one way, you live another.

The vices of idleness are only to be shaken off by active employment.

A thousand approaches lie open to death.

Plato once wanted to punish one of his slaves and asked his nephew to do the actual whipping for he himself did not own his anger.

That day which you fear as being the end of all things is the birthday of your eternity.

The ascent from earth to heaven is not easy.

Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all. . . . .

Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.

Life without literary studies is death.

Its harder for people to seek retirement from themselves than from the law

Our fears vanish as the danger approaches.

Live among others as if God beheld you; speak to God as if others were listening.

Who timidly requests invites refusal.

One must take all one's life to learn how to leave, and what will perhaps make you wonder more, one must take all one's life to learn how to die.

The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture.

We should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering.

Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.

The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth.

To the stars through difficulties.

His head was turned by too great success.

That poverty is no disaster is understood by everyone who has not yet succumbed to the madness of greed and luxury that turns everything topsy-turvy.

This is the reason we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will.

Leisure without literature is death, or rather the burial of a living man -Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura

Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

Fear drives the wretched to prayer

It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.

Resistance to oppression is second nature.

If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

There is no greater punishment of wickedness that that it is dissatisfied with itself and its deeds.

Who needs forgiveness, should the same extend with readiness.

A young man respects and looks up to his teachers.

Human society is like an arch, kept from falling by the mutual pressure of its parts

Life is divided into three periods: that which has been, that which is, that which will be. Of these the present is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain.

I shall never be ashamed to quote a bad author if what he says is good.

The bounty of nature is too little for the greedy person.

It is expedient for the victor to wish for peace restored; for the vanquished it is necessary.

Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; 'tis in us, and planted in our bowels; and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick, renders us more hard to be cured.

Slavery holds few men fast; the greater number hold fast their slavery.

Happy he whoe'er, content with the common lot, with safe breeze hugs the shore, and, fearing to trust his skiff to the wider sea, with unambitious oar keeps close to the land.

It is sweet to mingle tears with tears; Griefs, where they wound in solitude, Wound more deeply.

Light griefs do speak, while sorrow's tongue is bound.

No emotion falls into dislike so readily as sorrow.

Nobody will keep the thing he hears to himself, and nobody will repeat just what he hears and no more.

Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

We are more wicked together than separately. If you are forced to be in a crowd, then most of all you should withdraw into yourself.

Auditur et altera pars. (The other side shall be heard as well.)

It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.