Seneca
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and playwright, c. 4 BC-65 AD
100 quotes.
Quotes by Seneca
- If wisdom were conferred with this proviso, that I must keep it to myself and not communicate it to others, I would have none of it.
- If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.
- It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.
- It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man I will oblige a great many that are not so.
- It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.
- It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
- It is the edge and temper of the blade that make a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so it is not money or possessions that make man considerable, but his virtue.
- It is with life as it is with a play,—it matters not how long the action is spun out, but how good the acting is.
- Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.
- Let him that hath bestowed a benefit conceal it; let him that hath received it disclose it.
- Let us make haste to live, since every day to a wise man is a new life.
- Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.
- Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
- Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do.
- Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears; the effect of precepts is therefore slow and tedious, whilst that of examples is summary and effectual.
- Most powerful is he who has himself in his power.
- No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.
- Nobody works out the value of time: men use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. We have to be more careful in preserving what will cease at an unknown point.
- Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
- Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
- Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.
- People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.
- Prove your words by your deeds.
- Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future.
- Regard a friend as loyal, and you will make him loyal.
- Show me that the good life doesn’t consist in its length, but in its use, and that it is possible—no, entirely too common—for a person who has had a long life to have lived too little.
- So live with men, as if God saw you; so speak to God, as if men heard you.
- So make haste to live, my dear Lucilius and think of each single day as a single life.
- That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
- The greatest power of ruling consists in the exercise of self-control.
- The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
- The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live.
- The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.
- The shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches.
- There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
- There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
- There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
- There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.
- There is no greater evil in covetousness than its ingratitude.
- There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it in your expecting evil before it arrives?