Seneca Quotes

Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist (c. 4 BCE–65 CE)

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – A.D. 65), often known simply as Seneca, or Seneca the Younger, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and humorist. He was the son of Seneca the Elder.

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Native Name: Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Alternative Names: Seneca the Younger • the Younger Seneca • Lucio Anneo Seneca • Annaeus Seneca • Lucius Annaeus Seneca minor • Lucius Annaeus Seneca Iunior • L. Annæus Seneca • Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger

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What I advise you to do is no to be unhappy before the crisis comes.

The happy man is one who is freed from both fear and desire because of the gift of reason.

Curae leues locuntur, ingentes stupent.

Vis tu cogitare istum quem servum tuum vocas ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori! tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum.

Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nimis omnibus Ignotus moritur sibi

Qui non vetat peccare cum possit, iubet.

Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts!

arma non servant modum; nec temperari facile nec reprimi potest stricti ensis ira; bella delectat cruor.

You will not mention a single home so wretched that it could not take comfort from knowing one more wretched.

Virtue runs no risk of becoming contemptible by being exposed to view, and it is better to be despised for simplicity than to be tormented by continual hypocrisy.

Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis via est.

The one loves to do good, the other to do harm; the one to help even strangers, the other to attack even its dearest friends.

This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured.

Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.

I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then? Am I free from bonds now? Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me! “I shall die,” you say; you mean to say “I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death.”