Quotes By Seneca

"I realize that these mental agitations of mine are not dangerous and won’t produce a storm. To express my complaint for you in a realistic metaphor, I am harried not by a tempest but by sea-sickness."

"Why should I demand of Fortune that she give rather than demand of myself that I should not crave? ."

"Restless people often pretend to be calm."

"It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence."

"We always feel anger longer than we feel hurt."

"You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals."

"Different reasons roused different peoples to leave their homes; but this at least is clear, nothing has stayed where it was born. The human race is always on the move."

"There is only one relief for great sufferings, and that is to endure and surrender to their compulsion."

"No genius that ever won acclaim did so without a measure of indulgence. Name me any man you like who had a celebrated reputation, and I’ll tell you what the age he lived in forgave him, what it turned a blind eye to in his work."

"No one keeps himself waiting; and yet the greatest cure for anger is to wait, so that the initial passion it engenders may die down, and the fog that shrouds the mind may subside, or become less thick."

"He praised his own achievements, not without cause but without end."

"The man who tries to find out what has been said against him, who seeks to unearth spiteful gossip, even when engaged in privately, is destroying his own peace of mind."

"Kingdoms which act unjustly never last."

"For what purpose, then, do I make a man my friend? In order to have someone for whom I may die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may stake my own life, and pay the pledge, too."

"Nero: "Am I forbidden to do what all may do?" Seneca: "From high rank high example is expected.""

"Stolid pack-animals are much more fit for carrying loads than thoroughbred horses: who ever subdued their noble speed with a heavy burden?"

"A man who makes a decision without listening to both sides is unjust, even if his ruling is a fair one."

"You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns."

"For that is the people’s verdict, but wise men on the whole reject the people’s decrees."

"Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?""

"A hungry people neither listens to reason nor is mollified by fair treatment or swayed by any appeals."

"Am I not to inquire into the identity of the artist of this universe?"

"When arrogant hands once seize power, the ruler thinks authority resides in stubbornness."

"Plague on it! what madness this is, to punish one's self because one is unfortunate, and not to lessen, but to increase one's ills!"

"Providence which could be spoken of, almost according to choice or context, under a variety of names or descriptions including the divine reason, creative reason, nature."

"He who needs riches least, enjoys riches most."

"How much happier is the man who owes nothing to anybody except the one he can most easily refuse, himself!"

"Be deaf to those who love you most of all; they pray for bad things with good intentions. ."

"Life is divided into three parts: what was, what is and what shall be. Of these three periods, the present is short, the future is doubtful and the past alone is certain."

"Every man, when he first sees light, is commanded to be content with milk and rags. Such is our beginning, and yet kingdoms are all too small for us!"

"The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes to-day."

"The amount of life we truly live is small. For our existence on Earth is not Life, but merely Time."

"Thus the time we are given is not brief, but we make it so. We do not lack time; on the contrary, there is so much of it that we waste an awful lot."

"A multitude of books only gets in one's way. So if you are unable to read all the books in your possession, you have enough when you have all the books you are able to read."

"No one can merely go wrong by himself, but he must become both the cause and adviser of another's wrong doing."

"We are indeed apt to ascribe certain faults to the place or to the time; but those faults will follow us, no matter how we change our place. You."