Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotes

God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He who has great power should use it lightly.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can't find.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

- 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 abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man... It is more powerful than external circumstances.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

One crime has to be concealed by another.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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 fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

One must steer, not talk.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Every guilty person is his own hangman.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

All art is but imitation of nature.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

- 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

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

A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He who is brave is free.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Every reign must submit to a greater reign.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

In war there is no prize for runner-up.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

For greed all nature is too little.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A great fortune is a great slavery.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If you judge, investigate.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Love in its essence is spiritual fire.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If you wished to be loved, love.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

- 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

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If you would judge, understand.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Life, if well lived, is long enough.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Time discovers truth.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Life is warfare.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

You learn to know a pilot in a storm.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

All cruelty springs from weakness.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The wish for healing has always been half of health.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Do everything as in the eye of another.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

What is true belongs to me!

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No man was ever wise by chance.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca