Top 995 Quotes & Sayings by Seneca the Younger - Page 15

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all. It sets the slave at liberty, carries the banished man home, and places all mortals on the same level, insomuch that life itself were a punishment without it.

It passes in the world for greatness of mind, to be perpetually giving and loading people with bounties; but it is one thing to know how to give and another thing not to know how to keep. Give me a heart that is easy and open, but I will have no holes in it; let it be bountiful with judgment, but I will have nothing run out of it I know not how.

Anger is like a ruin, which, in falling upon its victim, breaks itself to pieces.

It is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.

If you will fear nothing, think that all things are to be feared.

All we see and admire today will burn in the universal fire that ushers in a new, just, happy world.

All I desire is, that my poverty may not be a burden to myself, or make me so to others; and that is the best state of fortune that is neither directly necessitous nor far from it. A mediocrity of fortune, with gentleness of mind, will preserve us from fear or envy; which is a desirable condition; for no man wants power to do mischief.

The origin of all mankind was the same; it is only a clear and good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself.

Extreme remedies are never the first to be resorted to.

Everything in art is but a copy of nature.

The way to wickedness is always through wickedness.

No man is nobler born than another, unless he is born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition. They who make such a parade with their family pictures and pedigrees, are, properly speaking, rather to be called noted or notorious than noble persons. I thought it right to say this much, in order to repel the insolence of men who depend entirely upon chance and accidental circumstances for distinction, and not at all on public services and personal merit.

The velocity with which time flies is infinite, as is most apparent to those who look back.

The arts are the servant; wisdom its master.

He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before any cause for sorrow has arisen.

Expediency often silences justice.

Trifling trouble find utterance; deeply felt pangs are silent.

Death falls heavily on that man who, known too well to others, dies in ignorance of himself.

A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.

We are at best but stewards of what we falsely call our own; yet avarice is so insatiable that it is not in the power of liberality to content it.

That comes too late that comes for the asking.

Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already.

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

As gratitude is a necessary, and a glorious virtue, so also it is an obvious, a cheap, and an easy one; so obvious that wherever there is life there is a place for it; so cheap, that the covetous man may be gratified without expense, and so easy that the sluggard may be so likewise without labor.

The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.

Life is long if it is full.

To give and to lose is nothing; but to lose and to give still is the part of a great mind.

Consider an enemy may become a friend.

Home joys are blessed of heaven.

The wise man lives as long as he should, not just as long as he likes.

Dissembling profiteth nothing; a feigned countenance, and slightly forged externally, deceiveth but very few.

There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

Truth will never be tedious unto him that travelleth in the secrets of nature; there is nothing but falsehood that glutteth us.

There is as much greatness of mind in the owning of a good turn as in the doing of it; and we must no more force a requital out of season than be wanting in it.

We are as answerable for what we give as for what we receive; nay, the misplacing of a benefit is worse than the not receiving of it; for the one is another person's fault, but the other is mine.

Unjust dominion cannot be eternal.

The most happy ought to wish for death.

The miserable are sacred.

He may as well not thank at all, who thanks when none are by.

Let the weary at length possess quiet rest.

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.

Eternal law has arranged nothing better than this, that it has given us one way in to life, but many ways out.

The path of precept is long, that of example short and effectual.

Whatever we owe, it is our part to find where to pay it, and to do it without asking, too; for whether the creditor be good or bad, the debt is still the same.

Dignity increases more easily than it begins.

The proper amount of wealth is that which neither descends to poverty nor is far distant from it.

Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself.

The most imperious masters over their own servants are at the same time the most abject slaves to the servants of others.

Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.

He that will do no good offices after a disappointment must stand still, and do just nothing at all. The plough goes on after a barren year; and while the ashes are yet warm, we raise a new house upon the ruins of a former.

It is a youthful failing to be unable to control one's impulses.

Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.

You find in some a sort of graceless modesty, that makes them ashamed to requite an obligation.

The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.

It is pleasant at times to play the madman.

There is this blessing, that while life has but one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as I choose the house in which I live, the ship in which I will sail, so will I choose the time and manner of my death.

He that lays down precepts for the governing of our lives, and moderating our passions, obliges humanity not only in the present, but in all future generations.

Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable.

It is only the surprise and newness of the thing which makes that misfortune terrible which by premeditation might be made easy to us. For that which some people make light by sufferance, others do by foresight.

He invites the commission of a crime who does not forbid it, when it is in his power to do so.