“Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.”
Because thou writest me often, I thank thee ... Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.”
What man
can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is
dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed,
Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
“Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other
misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
“you shall be told what pleased me to-day in the writings of
Hecato; it is these words: "What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself." That was
indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Life is like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“If anyone says that the best life of all is to sail the sea, and then adds that I must not sail upon a sea where shipwrecks are a common occurrence and there are often sudden storms that sweep the helmsman in an adverse direction, I conclude that this man, although he lauds navigation, really forbids me to launch my ship.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters
“For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?
A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. ”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do so by example.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man; to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence on the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms--you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.”
-Seneca”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“And this, too, affords no small occasion for anxieties - if you are bent on assuming a pose and never reveal yourself to anyone frankly, in the fashion of many who live a false life that is all made up for show; for it is torturous to be constantly watching oneself and be fearful of being caught out of our usual role. And we are never free from concern if we think that every time anyone looks at us he is always taking-our measure; for many things happen that strip off our pretence against our will, and, though all this attention to self is successful, yet the life of those who live under a mask cannot be happy and without anxiety. But how much pleasure there is in simplicity that is pure, in itself unadorned, and veils no part of its character! Yet even such a life as this does run some risk of scorn, if everything lies open to everybody; for there are those who disdain whatever has become too familiar. But neither does virtue run any risk of being despised when she is brought close to the eyes, and it is better to be scorned by reason of simplicity than tortured by perpetual pretence.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters
“To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“The time will come when diligent research over periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden...Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memories of us will have been effaced. Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has something for every age to investigate. nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Naturalium Quaestionum Libri
“A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“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?”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“For it is dangerous to attach one's self to the crowd in front, and so long as each one of us is more willing to trust another than to judge for himself, we never show any judgment in the matter of living, but always a blind trust, and a mistake that has been passed on from hand to hand finally involves us and works our destruction. It is the example of other people that is our undoing; let us merely separate ourselves from the crowd, and we shall be made whole. But as it is, the populace,, defending its own iniquity, pits itself against reason. And so we see the same thing happening that happens at the elections, where, when the fickle breeze of popular favor has shifted, the very same persons who chose the praetors wonder that those praetors were chosen.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but
we have been a long time on the way.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“We should every night call ourselves to an account;
What infirmity have I mastered today?
What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Men whose spirit has grown arrogant from the great favor of fortune have this most serious fault—those whom they have injured they also hate.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“As Lucretius says: 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.' But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters
“While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
On the Shortness of Life
“The geat blessing of mankind are within us and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“And what’s so bad about your being deprived of that?... All things seem unbearable to people who have become spoilt, who have become soft through a life of luxury, ailing more in the mind than they ever are in the body.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Life, if you know how to use it, is long; but…many, following no fixed aim, shifting and… dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“Do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“if`you`live`in`harmony`with`nature you`will`never`be`poor,,
if`you`live`according `what`others`think,you`will`never`be`rich”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“I am not a ‘wise man,’ nor . . . shall I ever be. And so require not from me that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked. It is enough for me if every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“It's not because things are difficult that we don't dare; It's because we don't dare that things are difficult.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Let no one,' I say, 'who will make me no worthy return for such a loss rob me of a single day; 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 tranquillity that is remote from public and private concern.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“We are indeed apt to ascribe certain faults to the place or to the time; but those faults will follow us, no matter how we change our place.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
An age builds up cities: an hour destroys them. In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Why do I not rather seek some real good - one which I could feel, not one which I could display? These things that draw the eyes of men, before which they halt, which they show to one another in wonder, outwardly glitter, but are worthless within.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient; nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in a fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient; and looking upon them only as sick and extravagant.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“No prizefighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent's fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary's charge, who has been downed in bloody but not it spirit, one who as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“They strive to attain their wishes by every available means, instructing and compelling themselves to dishonest and difficult acts. And when their labour is without reward, it is the fruitless disgrace that tortures them - they are not grieved to have desired evil things but to have desired in vain. Then remorse for what they began lays hold of them, and the fear of beginning again, and thence creeps in the agitation of mind which can find no relief - because neither can they rule nor can they obey their desires. And then comes the hesitancy of a life failing to clear a way for itself, and the dull wasting of a soul lying torpid amidst forsaken hopes.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“In truth, Serenus, I have for a long time been silently asking myself to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I can find nothing that so closely approaches it as the state of those who, after being released from a long and serious illness, are sometimes touched with fits of fever and slight disorders, and, freed from the last traces of them, are nevertheless disquieted with mistrust, and, though now quite well, stretch out their wrist to a physician and complain unjustly of any trace of heat in their body. It is not, Serenus, that these are not quite well in body, but that they are not quite used to being well; just as even a tranquil sea will show some ripple, particularly when it has just subsided after a storm. What you need, therefore, is not any of those harsher measures which we have already left behind, the necessity of opposing yourself at this point, of being angry with yourself at that, of sternly urging yourself on at another, but that which comes last -confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and have not been led astray by the many cross- tracks of those who are roaming in every direction, some of whom are wandering very near the path itself. But what you desire is something great and supreme and very near to being a god - to be unshaken. ”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters
“Indeed the state of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but the most wretched are those who are toiling not even at their own preoccupations, but must regulate their sleep by another's, and their walk by another's pace, and obey orders in those freest of all things, loving and hating. If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it. Our too great love for it makes us restless with fears, burdens us with cares, and exposes us to insults.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“Although the sum and substance of the happy life is unalloyed freedom from care, and though the secret of such freedom is unshaken confidence... men gather together that which causes worry.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Epistles 1-65
“What man
can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is
dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed,
Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
“Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other
misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
“you shall be told what pleased me to-day in the writings of
Hecato; it is these words: "What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself." That was
indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
Letters from a Stoic
“Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.”
―
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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