Seneca the Younger Quotes

130 Sourced Quotes

Life is like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.

Seneca the Younger
Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture room.

Seneca the Younger
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.

Seneca the Younger
If one doesn't know his mistakes, he won't want to correct them.

Seneca the Younger
Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

Seneca the Younger
Pain is an inconsiderable thing if not reinforced by opinion.

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

Seneca the Younger
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.

Seneca the Younger
What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.

Seneca the Younger
Friendship is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm.

Seneca the Younger
A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.

Seneca the Younger
The vulgar bark at men of mark, as dogs bark at strangers.

Seneca the Younger
We are not children twice, as the saying is, but for ever; the difference is that we play bigger games.

Seneca the Younger
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

Seneca the Younger
Impurity is caused by attitude, not events.

Seneca the Younger
Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause.

Seneca the Younger
'Tis the first art of kings, the power to suffer hate.

Seneca the Younger
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

Seneca the Younger
What once were vices, are now the manners of the day.

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

Seneca the Younger
Nothing lasts forever, few things even last for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another; moreover all that begins also ends.

Seneca the Younger
Man's highest good is attained if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth. And what is it which this reason demands of him? The easiest thing in the world — to live in accordance with his nature. But this has turned into a hard task by the general madness of mankind.

Seneca the Younger
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.

Seneca the Younger
I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for the mind.

Seneca the Younger
For no man is free who is a slave to his body.

Seneca the Younger
Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty. The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

Seneca the Younger
We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty. And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practiced in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual.

Seneca the Younger
That man lives badly who does not know how to die well.

Seneca the Younger
Anyone can stop a man's life, but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.

Seneca the Younger
If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.

Seneca the Younger