Seneca Quotes

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it...

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.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via" - "There is no easy way from the earth to the stars

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire

If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

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.

If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

He who is brave is free

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

No man was ever wise by chance

They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.

He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.

Associate with people who are likely to improve you.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.

Only time can heal what reason cannot.

But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.

Timendi causa est nescire - Ignorance is the cause of fear.

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.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

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

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.

Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool

The sun also shines on the wicked.

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject... And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them... Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.

Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases?...We see a game beyond the endgame...As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.

Leisure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.

It is not the man who has too little that is poor, but the one who hankers after more.

Life is long if you know how to use it.

While we wait for life, life passes

There is no genius without a touch of madness.

We learn not in the school, but in life.

Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.

Ronan's smile was sharp and hooked as one of the creature's claws. "'A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hand'." "I can't believe Noah didn't stick around to help." "Sure you can. Never trust the dead.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.

Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.

errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum: 'to err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical.

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

Regard [a friend] as loyal, and you will make him loyal.

I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land.

To be everywhere is to be nowhere.

It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.

He who spares the wicked injures the good.

It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do so by example.

What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.

You should … live in such a way that there is nothing which you could not as easily tell your enemy as keep to yourself.

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

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

It is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.

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.

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.

Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.

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.

Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do.

To win true freeedom you must be a slave to philosophy.

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.

The part of life we really live is small.' For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

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.

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with

No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself

Auditur et altera pars. (The other side shall be heard as well.)

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity

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.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and -what will perhaps make you wonder more - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

Beyond all things is the sea

The best ideas are common property

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them

The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.

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.

Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.

I am clumsy, drop glasses and get drunk on Monday afternoons. I read Seneca and can recite Shakespeare by heart, but I mess up the laundry, don’t answer my phone and blame the world when something goes wrong. I think I have a dream, but most of the days I’m still sleeping. The grass is cut. It smells like strawberries. Today I finished four books and cleaned my drawers. Do you believe in a God? Can I tell you about Icarus? How he flew too close to the sun? I want to make coming home your favourite part of the day. I want to leave tiny little words lingering in your mind, on nights when you’re far away and can’t sleep. I want to make everything around us beautiful; make small things mean a little more. Make you feel a little more. A little better, a little lighter. The coffee is warm, this cup is yours. I want to be someone you can’t live without. I want to be someone you can’t live without.

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.