Seneca Quotes

All outdoors may be bedlam, provided there is no disturbance within.
Seneca
What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.
Seneca
Love of bustle is not industry.
Seneca
The sun also shines on the wicked.
Seneca
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Seneca
Vice can be learnt even without a teacher.
Seneca
An age builds up cities: an hour destroys them.
Seneca
Time discovered truth.
Seneca
The sun shines even on the wicked.
Seneca
Failure changes for the better success for the worse.
Seneca
Speech is the index of the mind.
Seneca
Whatever is well said by another is mine.
Seneca
Man is a social animal.
Seneca
If you would wish another to keep your secret first keep it yourself.
Seneca
Revenge is an inhuman word.
Seneca
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.
Seneca
He who has great power should use it lightly.
Seneca
There is nothing so bitter that a patient mind cannot find some solace for it.
Seneca
They laboriously do nothing.
Seneca
Revenge is an inhuman word.
Seneca
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.
Seneca
He who has great power should use it lightly.
Seneca
There is nothing so bitter that a patient mind cannot find some solace for it.
Seneca
They laboriously do nothing.
Seneca
A good mind possesses a kingdom: a great fortune is a great slavery.
Seneca
Fire tries gold misery tries brave men.
Seneca
What once were vices are now manners.
Seneca
Man is a social animal.
Seneca
True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have which is abundantly sufficient.
Seneca
As is a tale so is life: not how long it is but how good it is is what matters.
Seneca
Men learn while they teach.
Seneca
Injustice never rules forever.
Seneca
He who decides a case without hearing the other side though he decide justly cannot be considered just.
Seneca
Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
Seneca
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
Seneca
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
Seneca
A hungry people listens not to reason nor cares for justice nor is bent by any prayers.
Seneca
Whom they have injured they also hate.
Seneca
Learn how to feel joy.
Seneca
Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar it never fails of doing justice upon itself for every guilty person is his own hangman.
Seneca
The foremost art of kings is the power to endure hatred.
Seneca
A great step toward independence is a good-humoured stomach.
Seneca
Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order.
Seneca
What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it.
Seneca
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Seneca
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
Seneca
When I think over what I have said I envy dumb people.
Seneca
If you are surprised at the number of our maladies count our cooks.
Seneca
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.
Seneca
Night brings our troubles to the light rather than banishes them.
Seneca
Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; ... in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is.
Seneca
Life will follow the path it started upon, and will neither reverse nor check its course; it will make no noise, it will not remind you of its swiftness. Silent it will glide on; it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the applause of the populace. Just as it was started on its first day, so it will run; nowhere will it turn aside, nowhere will it delay.
Seneca
Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
Seneca
Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy. Their continual attention to others behavior shows how they are boring.
Seneca
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
Seneca
To expel hunger and thirst there is no necessity of sitting in a palace and submitting to the supercilious brow and contumelious favour of the rich and great there is no necessity of sailing upon the deep or of following the camp What nature wants is every where to be found and attainable without much difficulty whereas require the sweat of the brow for these we are obliged to dress anew j compelled to grow old in the field and driven to foreign mores A sufficiency is always at hand
Seneca
...certain people have good, ordinary blood and others have an animated, lively sort of blood that comes to the face quickly.
Seneca
And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name.
Seneca
Barley porridge, or a crust of barley bread, and water do not make a very cheerful diet, but nothing gives one keener pleasure than having the ability to derive pleasure even from that-- and the feeling of having arrived at something which one cannot be deprived of by any unjust stroke of fortune.
Seneca
Cling, therefore, to this sound and wholesome plan of life; indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health. ... Your food should appease your hunger, your drink quench your thirst, your clothing keep out the cold, your house be a protection against inclement weather. It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or variegated marble imported from another country: what you have to understand is that thatch makes a person just as good a roof as gold.
Seneca