Seneca Quotes

we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it…

Revenge is an admission of pain: a mind that is bowed by injury is not a great mind.

The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly.

Omnis ars naturae imitatio est.

If bad people dislike you, so much the better.

Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.

Qui nil potest sperare, desperate nihil.

And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring chance and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature.

Armies have endured all manner of want, have lived on roots, and have resisted hunger by means of food too revolting to mention. All this they have suffered to gain a kingdom, and—what is more marvellous—to gain a kingdom that will be another’s. Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?

Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter et contumeliae patiens.

Clothe yourself with a hero’s courage, and withdraw for a little space from the opinions of the common man. Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur; this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and blood.

Sapiens vivit quantum debet, non quantum potest.

The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.

Timendi causa est nescire. (The cause of fear is ignorance).

All vices sink into our whole being, if we do not crush them before they gain a footing; and in like manner these sad, pitiable, and discordant feelings end by feeding upon their own bitterness, until the unhappy mind takes a sort of morbid delight in grief... In like manner, wounds heal easily when the blood is fresh upon them: they can then be cleared out and brought to the surface, and admit of being probed by the finger: when disease has turned them into malignant ulcers, their cure is more difficult.