Top 995 Quotes & Sayings by Seneca the Younger - Page 3

A well-governed appetite is a great part of liberty

We are all sinful. Therefore whatever we blame in another we shall find in our own bosoms.

There is nothing more miserable and foolish than anticipation.

A lesson that is never learned can never be too often taught.

You cannot escape necessities, but you can overcome them.

They who have light in themselves will not revolve as satellites.

A man afraid of death will never play the part of a live man.

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and - even more surprising - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

Some cures are worse than the dangers they combat.

We gain so much by quickness, and lose so much by slowness.

Epileptics know by signs when attacks are imminent and take precautions accordingly; we must do the same in regard to anger

Everything hangs on one's thinking.

Forgive that you may be forgiven.

No man ever became wise by chance.

The wise man will always reflect concerning the quality not the quantity of life.

Small sorrows speak great ones are silent.

Refuse to let the thought of death bother you: nothing is grim when we have escaped that fear.

How much does great prosperity overspread the mind with darkness.

To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.

Everyone rushes his life on, and suffers from a yearning for the future and a boredom with the present. But that man who devotes every hour to his own needs, who plans every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears tomorrow.

We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them.

It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.

Unblest is he who thinks himself unblest.

He, who will not pardon others, must not himself expect pardon.

Persistent kindness conquers the ill-disposed.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Long is the road to learning by precepts, but short and successful by examples.

Lay hold of today's task, and you will not depend so much upon tomorrow's.

The mind, unless it is pure and holy, cannot see God.

The mind is a matter over every kind of fortune; itself acts in both ways, being the cause of its own happiness and misery.

Time hath often cured the wound which reason failed to heal.

Wisdom comes to no one by chance.

It is not goodness to be better than the worst.

He is a king who fears nothing, he is a king who desires nothing!

I am telling you to be a slow-speaking person.

Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by actions.

No one loves his country for its size or eminence, but because it's his own.

A good mind possesses a kingdom.

The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo.

What a vile and abject thing is man if he do not raise himself above humanity.

A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.

Misfortune is the test of a person's merit.

The sovereign good of man is a mind that subjects all things to itself and is itself subject to nothing; such a man's pleasures are modest and reserved, and it may be a question whether he goes to heaven, or heaven comes to him; for a good man is influenced by God Himself, and has a kind of divinity within him.

After death there is nothing.

The mind is never right but when it is at peace within itself; the soul is in heaven even while it is in the flesh, if it be purged of its natural corruptions, and taken up with divine thoughts, and contemplations.

Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure, if you know how to use it. The best morsel is reserved for last.

That which we are not permitted to have we delight in; that which we can have is disregarded.

You have to persevere and fortify your pertinacity until the will to good becomes a disposition to good.

He who boasts of his pedigree praises that which does not belong to him.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy.

Demand not that I am the equal of the greatest, only that I am better than the wicked.

It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.

A coward calls himself cautious, a miser thrifty.

Delay not; swift the flight of fortune's greatest favours.

We must take care to live not merely a long life, but a full one; for living a long life requires only good fortune, but living a full life requires character. Long is the life that is fully lived; it is fulfilled only when the mind supplies its own good qualities and empowers itself from within.

Never to wrong others takes one a long way towards peace of mind.

The man who thinks only of his own generation is born for few.

The sun shines even on the wicked.

You must know for which harbor you are headed, if you are to catch the right wind to take you there.