Seneca
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and playwright, c. 4 BC-65 AD
100 quotes.
Quotes by Seneca
- Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life.
- To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.
- We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.
- We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.
- We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
- 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.
- We should not, like sheep, follow the herd of creatures in front of us, making our way where others go, not where we ought to go.
- We suffer more in imagination than in reality.
- What must be shall be; and that which is a necessity to him that struggles, is little more than choice to him that is willing.
- What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.
- When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
- Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
- While we are postponing, life speeds by.
- While we wait for life, life passes.
- Who can hope for nothing should despair of nothing.
- Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life—in a firmness of mind and mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do, as well as to talk; and to make our actions and words all of a color.
- Wisdom teaches us to do, as well as talk, and to make our words and actions all of a color.
- You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.
- You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
- You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.