Seneca Quotes

The real compensation of a right action is inherent in having performed it.

People do not die - they kill themselves.

Those whom fortune has never favored are more joyful than those whom she has deserted.

Death either destroys or unhusks us. If it means liberation, better things await us when our burden s gone: if destruction, nothing at all awaits us; blessings and curses are abolished.

The many speak highly of you, but have you really any grounds for satisfaction with yourself if you are the kind of person the many understand?

Men practice war; beasts do not.

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.

There is no fair wind for one who knows not whither he is bound.

Nemo tam divos habuit faventes, Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri. Nobody has ever found the gods so much his friends that he can promise himself another day.

Nullum ad nocendum tempus angustum est malis. No time is too short for the wicked to injure their neighbors.

Corporeal punishment falls far more heavily than most weighty pecuniary penalty.

Although a man has so well purged his mind that nothing can trouble or deceive him any more, yet he reached his present innocence through sin.

Crime oft recoils upon the author's head.

You roll my log, and I will roll yours.

True love hates and will not bear delay.

Whatever is to make us better and happy God has placed either openly before us or close to us.

Light cares speak, great ones are speechless. -Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent

There is nothing after death, and death itself is nothing.

Apples taste sweetest when they're going.

It is bad to live for necessity; but there is no necessity to live in necessity.

I do not sacrifice, but lend myself to business.

The mind does not easily unlearn what it has been long in learning.

One must steer, not talk.

You talk one way, you live another.

The vices of idleness are only to be shaken off by active employment.

A thousand approaches lie open to death.

Plato once wanted to punish one of his slaves and asked his nephew to do the actual whipping for he himself did not own his anger.

That day which you fear as being the end of all things is the birthday of your eternity.

The ascent from earth to heaven is not easy.

Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all. . . . .

Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.

Life without literary studies is death.

Its harder for people to seek retirement from themselves than from the law

Our fears vanish as the danger approaches.

Live among others as if God beheld you; speak to God as if others were listening.

Who timidly requests invites refusal.

One must take all one's life to learn how to leave, and what will perhaps make you wonder more, one must take all one's life to learn how to die.

The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture.

We should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering.

Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.

The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth.

To the stars through difficulties.

His head was turned by too great success.

That poverty is no disaster is understood by everyone who has not yet succumbed to the madness of greed and luxury that turns everything topsy-turvy.

This is the reason we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will.

Leisure without literature is death, or rather the burial of a living man -Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura

Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

Fear drives the wretched to prayer

It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.