Seneca Quotes

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.

One who asks fearfully teaches us to say no.

You do not know where death awaits you; so be ready for it everywhere.

The day a man becomes superior to pleasure, he will also be superior to pain.

We are driven by fate and must yield to fate.
No anxious fretting can alter
the threads from that commanding spindle.

This is our big mistake: to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death.

Live for others if you want to live for yourself.

We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.

Sometimes it is a pleasure not just to give back what you have received but hurl it away.

Get used to your circumstances, complain about them as little as possible and grasp whatever advantages they have to offer.

Mercy oft doth offer death, not life.

That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.

Those who have been placed in high position should bestow pardon for many things, should seek pardon for none.

Thus they are deceived by the likeness of blows, and are appeased by the pretended tears of those who deprecate their wrath, and thus an unreal grief is healed by an unreal revenge.

Qui grate beneficium accipit, primam eius pensionem solvit.