Top 995 Quotes & Sayings by Seneca the Younger - Page 13

One hand washes the other.

The wise man then followed a simple way of life-which is hardly surprising when you consider how even in this modern age he seeks to be as little encumbered as he possibly can.

Prudence and love cannot be mixed; you can end love, but never moderate it.

The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture.

Drunkenness is nothing but a self-induced state of insanity.

Who shrinks from knowledge of his calamities but aggravates his fear; troubles half seen, shall torture all the more.

Our Creator shall continue to dwell above the sky, and that is where those on earth will end their thanksgiving.

The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.

That poverty is no disaster is understood by everyone who has not yet succumbed to the madness of greed and luxury that turns everything topsy-turvy.

A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.

The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth.

The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.

Nature ever provides for her own exigencies.

What with our hooks, snares, nets, and dogs, we are at war with all living creatures, and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too cheap or too common; and all this is to gratify a fantastical palate.

Every day, therefore, should be regulated as if it were the one that brings up the rear, the one that rounds out and completes our lives.

Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the wicked; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law.

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.

Fear drives the wretched to prayer

Let us fight the battle-retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.

We should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering.

No one can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.

It's a vice to trust all, and equally a vice to trust none.

The declaration of love may come sooner than expected. Take time before you reciprocate as this may simply be a statement of what they expect from you.

If you expect the wise man to be as angry as the baseness of crimes requires, then he must not only be angry but go insane.

It is within the power of every man to live his life nobly, but of no man to live forever. Yet so many of us hope that life will go on forever, and so few aspire to live nobly.

The mind should be allowed some relaxation, that it may return to its work all the better for the rest.

When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.

There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn't just fall to a person's lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn't go to anyone other than oneself to find her.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.

Just where death is expecting you is something we cannot know; so, for your part, expect him everywhere.

How many discoveries are reserved for the ages to come when our memory shall be no more, for this world of ours contains matter for investigation for all generations.

To the stars through difficulties.

The road by precepts is tedious, by example, short and efficacious.

I was not born for one corner. The whole world is my native land.

The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.

Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants.

Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness.

This is the reason we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will.

Straightforwardness and simplicity are in keeping with goodness. The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort. To want simply what is enough nowadays suggests to people primitiveness and squalor.

Nature does not turn out her work according to a single pattern; she prides herself upon her power of variation.

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

Sovereignty over any foreign land is insecure.

Drunkenness is nothing else but a voluntary madness.

The deep waters of time will flow over us: only a few men of genius will lift a head above the surface, and though doomed eventually to pass into the same silence, will fight against oblivion and for a long time hold their own.

Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause.

It is safer to offend certain men than it is to oblige them; for as proof that they owe nothing they seek recourse in hatred.

His head was turned by too great success.

Leisure without literature is death, or rather the burial of a living man -Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura

No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own.

If wisdom were offered me with this restriction, that I should keep it close and not communicate it, I would refuse the gift.

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

Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from above, so many medicinal springs do not alter the taste of the sea, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. For it maintains its balance, and over all that happens it throws its own complexion, because it is more powerful than external circumstances.

Life is never incomplete if it is an honorable one. At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is whole.

Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.

A man can refrain from wanting what he has not and cheerfully make the best of a bird in the hand.

How can a thing possibly govern others when it cannot be governed itself?

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him. Ignoranti quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est.

See what daily exercise does for one.

It is extreme evil to depart from the company of the living before you die.