Seneca The Younger Quotes
No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. Thou must live for another, if thou wishest to live for thyself.
Whatever we owe, it is our part to find where to pay it, and to do it without asking, too; for whether the creditor be good or bad, the debt is still the same.
The proper amount of wealth is that which neither descends to poverty nor is far distant from it.
The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.
The origin of all mankind was the same; it is only a clear and good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself.
Anger is like a ruin, which, in falling upon its victim, breaks itself to pieces.
He that lays down precepts for the governing of our lives, and moderating our passions, obliges humanity not only in the present, but in all future generations.
We are at best but stewards of what we falsely call our own; yet avarice is so insatiable that it is not in the power of liberality to content it.
Dissembling profiteth nothing; a feigned countenance, and slightly forged externally, deceiveth but very few.
We are as answerable for what we give as for what we receive; nay, the misplacing of a benefit is worse than the not receiving of it; for the one is another person's fault, but the other is mine.
The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.
There is as much greatness of mind in the owning of a good turn as in the doing of it; and we must no more force a requital out of season than be wanting in it.
It is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
You find in some a sort of graceless modesty, that makes them ashamed to requite an obligation.
To give and to lose is nothing; but to lose and to give still is the part of a great mind.
Truth will never be tedious unto him that travelleth in the secrets of nature; there is nothing but falsehood that glutteth us.
The most imperious masters over their own servants are at the same time the most abject slaves to the servants of others.
Death falls heavily on that man who, known too well to others, dies in ignorance of himself.
He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before any cause for sorrow has arisen.
Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.
A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.
Eternal law has arranged nothing better than this, that it has given us one way in to life, but many ways out.
Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already.
