Words matter. These are the best Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
If you wished to be loved, love.
All art is but imitation of nature.
Whatever is well said by another, is mine.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
He has committed the crime who profits by it.
There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.
Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.
The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.
Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.
Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.
Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.
Every guilty person is his own hangman.
It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.
A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.
If you would judge, understand.
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.
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.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.
There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
All cruelty springs from weakness.
There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.
Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.
May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.
In war there is no prize for runner-up.
The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man… It is more powerful than external circumstances.
Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.
I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.
No man was ever wise by chance.
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.
No one is laughable who laughs at himself.
True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.
One must steer, not talk.
Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.
That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.
Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Life, if well lived, is long enough.
It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.
Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.
Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.
A great mind becomes a great fortune.
Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.
I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.
The wish for healing has always been half of health.
Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.
Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.
Pages: 1 2