Seneca Quotes

He is greedy of life who is not willing to die when the world is perishing around him.

Know thyself; this is the great object.

Great is he who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man to whom all his plate is no more that earthenware.

It is the property of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of good deeds, but good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even after having met with bad men.

There are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.

Why do people not confess vices? It is because they have not yet laid them aside. It is a waking person only who can tell their dreams.

That which achieves its effect by accident is not art.

We learn not for life but for the debating-room.

Something that can never be learnt too thoroughly can never be said too often.

Virtue is nothing else than right reason

Truth never perishes.

To be everywhere is to be nowhere.

It is rash to condemn where you are ignorant.

Simple is the language of truth.

The key to getting everything you want is to never put all your begs in one ask-it!

If I only have the will to be grateful, I am so.

A hungry people listens not to reason, not cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers.

I had rather never receive a kindness than never bestow one.

He who forbids not sin when he may, commands it

The guilt of enforced crimes lies on those who impose them.

The expression of truth is simplicity.

Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.

To make a commencement requires a mental effort.

Teach the art of living well.

Love of action is not industry.

He who blushes at riding in a rattletrap, will boast when he rides in style.

Adversity finds at last the man whom she has often passed by.

Anger, though concealed, is betrayed by the countenance. ?That anger is not warrantable which hath seen two suns.

Not to feel one's misfortunes is not human, not to bear them is not manly.

No one's so old that he mayn't with decency hope for one more day.

Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come . . . . Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.

It’s in the very trickery that it pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.

Certain laws have not been written, but they are more fixed than all the written laws.

This is the law of benefits between men; the one ought to forget at once what was given, and the other ought never to forget what he has received.

Such as the chain of causes we call Fate, such is the chain of wishes: one links on to another; the whole man is bound in the chain of wishing for ever.

Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.

It is sometimes pleasant even to act like a madman.

A hated government does not long survive.

It is well to be born either a king or a fool.

We have not to talk, but to steer the vessel.

I am not born from a single place. My country is the whole world.

Fortune may rob us of our wealth, not of our courage.

For what else is Nature but God and the Divine Reason that pervades the whole universe and all its parts.

No one can wear a mask for very long.

Unfamiliarity lends weight to misfortune, and there was never a man whose grief was not heightened by surprise.

Those that are a friend to themselves are sure to be a friend to all.

Those who pass their lives in foreign travel find they contract many ties of hospitality, but form no friendships.

What is required is not a lot words, but effectual ones.

As many servants so many enemies.

The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you give it only what you owe, and not as much as you can.