Seneca Quotes

Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in the arms of liberty.

Thus no fortune, no external circumstance, can shut off the wise man from action. For the very thing which engages his attention prevents him from attending to other things. He is ready for either outcome: if it brings goods, he controls them; if evils, he conquers them.

Everything hangs on one's thinking...A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.

Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth. Do you not see how in all animals certain signs appear before they proceed to mischief, and how their entire bodies put off their usual quiet appearance and stir up their ferocity? Boars foam at the mouth and sharpen their teeth by rubbing them against trees, bulls toss their horns in the air and scatter the sand with blows of their feet

You are scared of dying—and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different than being dead?

What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body.

For we are naturally disposed to admire more than anything else the man who shows fortitude in adversity.

Nulli potest secura vita contingere qui de producenda nimis cogitat.

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.

In hoc enim fallimur, quod mortem prospicimus: magna pars eius iam praeterit; quidquid aetatis retro est mors tenet.

Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for a kindness.

Let my mind be fixed upon itself, let it cultivate itself, let it busy itself with nothing outside, nothing that looks towards an umpire; let it love the tranquility that is remote from public and private concern.

Let another say. “Perhaps the worst will not happen.” You yourself must say. “Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins! Perhaps it happens for my best interests; it may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life.”

So near at hand is freedom, and is anyone still a slave?