Seneca Quotes

“Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth.”

“Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement.”

“There are certain things whose beginnings lie in our own power, but which, when developed, drag us along by their own force and leave us no retreat.”

“The most trustworthy virtue is that which long and carefully considers itself, controls itself, and slowly and deliberately brings itself to the front.”

“Every one when he calls himself innocent looks rather to external witnesses than to his own conscience.”

“Nothing becomes one who inflicts punishment less than anger, because the punishment has all the more power to work reformation if the sentence is pronounced with deliberate judgment.”

“What, too, can be more unworthy of the wise man, than that his passions should depend upon the wickedness of others?”

“To avoid being angry with individuals, you must pardon the whole mass, you must grant forgiveness to the entire human race.”

“We need a long-breathed struggle against permanent and prolific evils; not, indeed, to quell them, but merely to prevent their overpowering us.”

“Whatever is a terror to others, fears for itself.”

“The evils from which we suffer are curable, and since we were born with a natural bias towards good, nature herself will help us if we try to amend our lives.”

“What is more restful than a mind at peace, and what more toilsome than anger?”

“Let the wise man be moderate, and when things have to be done somewhat briskly, let him call force, not anger, to his aid.”

“Games also will be useful: for moderate pleasure relieves the mind and brings it to a proper balance.”

“We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.”

“Readiness to believe what we hear causes very great mischief; we ought often not even to listen, because in some cases it is better to be deceived than to suspect deceit.”

“Nothing, therefore, nourishes anger more than excessive and dissatisfied luxury: the mind ought to be hardened by rough treatment, so as not to feel any blow that is not severe.”

“Suppose that we are being punished; let us think not only of what we suffer, but of what we have done: let us sit in judgement on our past life.”

“How much further do the rules of duty extend than those of the law!”

“What can be more unjust than to believe in secret, and to be angry openly?”

“As all the limbs act in unison, because it is the interest of the whole body to keep each one of them safe, so men should spare one another, because they are born for society.”

“It is the part of a great mind to despise wrongs done to it; the most contemptuous form of revenge is not to deem one’s adversary worth taking vengeance upon.”

“Nothing is more unjust than that any one should inherit the quarrels of his father.”

“If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.”

“How far more glorious is it to throw back all wrongs and insults from oneself, like one wearing armour impenetrable to all weapons, for revenge is an admission that we have been hurt.”

“There is no greater proof of magnanimity than that nothing which befalls you should be able to move you to anger.”

“Let our undertakings, therefore, be neither petty nor yet presumptuous and reckless: let our hopes not range far from home: let us attempt nothing which if we succeed will make us astonished at our success.”

“Whenever a controversy seems likely to be longer or more keenly disputed than usual, let us check its first beginnings, before it gathers strength.”

“People do not all take offence in the same way; you ought then to know what your own weak point is, that you may guard it with especial care.”

“He who seeks to know what is said about him, who digs up spiteful tales even if they were told in secret, is himself the destroyer of his own peace of mind.”

“A large part of mankind manufacture their own grievances either by entertaining unfounded suspicions or by exaggerating trifles.”

“Let us put ourselves in the place of him with whom we are angry: at present an overweening conceit of our own importance makes us prone to anger, and we are quite willing to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves.”

“Fight hard with yourself and if you cannot conquer anger, do not let it conquer you: you have begun to get the better of it if it does not show itself, if it is not given vent.”

“Our inward thoughts gradually become influenced by our outward demeanour.”

“Do not form your judgment by one hour, or one day: consider the whole tendency of your mind: even though you have done no evil, yet you are capable of doing it.”

“How far better is it to heal an injury than to avenge it?”

“A man will never be well off to whom it is a torture to see any one better off than himself.”

“A wish for the same things, which ought to have been a bond of friendship, becomes a source of quarrels and hatred.”

“All our senses should be educated into strength: they are naturally able to endure much, provided that the spirit refrains from spoiling them.”

“The mind is strong enough to bear those evils for which it is prepared.”

“Let us set our own conscience fully at rest, but make no efforts to gain credit for ourselves.”

“Life is a matter which does not admit of waste, and we have no spare time to throw away.”

“This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to any one.”

“It is the property of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of good deeds, but good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even after having met with bad men.”

“No one writes down his gifts in a ledger, or like a grasping creditor demands repayment to the day and hour.”

“A benefit is not to be felt and handled, it is a thing which exists only in the mind.”

“We prize much more what comes from a willing hand, than what comes from a full one.”

“Common sense must guide our benefits; we must consider the time and the place, and the character of the receiver, which are the weights in the scale, which cause our gifts to be well or ill received.”

“Indeed, many men are made generous by lack of firmness.”

“To reproach a man at the very moment that you are doing him a service is sheer madness; it is to mix insult with your favours.”

“A constant reference to one's own services wounds our friend's feelings.”

“Let us shun vain boasting: let us be silent, and let our deeds speak for us.”

“We ought to look at the end of our benefits as well as the beginning, and not merely to give what men are glad to receive, but what they will hereafter be glad to have received.”

“The best man is he who gives readily, never asks for any return, and is delighted when the return is made, because, having really and truly forgotten what he gave, he receives it as though it were a present.”

“Let us consider whether we ought not to be even more careful in choosing to whom we should owe than to whom we should give.”

“You must first give me personal freedom of decision, and then your benefit.”

“He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first instalment of it.”

“No words need be used; if we only feel as we ought, our thankfulness will be shown in our countenances.”

“We shall never lack a subject for complaint if we look at benefits on their wrong side.”

“Those whose mind is fixed entirely upon what they hope to gain, regard with contempt all that is their own already.”

“Now no one can at the same time be both jealous and grateful, because those who are jealous are prone to complain and are sad, while the grateful are joyous.”

“Present good is not yet altogether complete, some mischance may interrupt it; the future is in suspense, and uncertain; but what is past is laid up in safety.”

“There is no credit in being grateful, unless it is safe to be ungrateful.”

“Some benefits cost much to the givers, some are of much value to the receivers but cost the givers nothing.”

“A benefit gives perpetual joy to a grateful man, but pleases an ungrateful one only for a moment.”

“Yet who is so exalted, that fortune may not make him need the aid even of the lowliest?”

“All men descend from the same original stock; no one is better born than another, except in so far as his disposition is nobler and better suited for the performance of good actions.”

“So whether you speak of nature, fate, or fortune, these are all names of the same God, using his power in different ways.”

“Nothing ought to be done without a reason: a benefit is not truly so, if it is bestowed without a reason, since reason accompanies all honorable action.”

“Nature bestows upon us all this immense advantage, that the light of virtue shines into the minds of all alike; even those who do not follow her, behold her.”

“What do we trust in for safety, if not in mutual help to one another?”

“It is profitable to be grateful; yet I will be grateful even though it harm me.”

“It is better to benefit the bad as well, for the sake of benefiting the good, than to give too little to the good for fear of benefiting the bad.”

“The wise man considers both sides: he knows how great is the power of errors, how uncertain human affairs are, how many obstacles there are to the success of plans.”

“It is easier to rule savage nations, impatient of foreign control, than to restrain one's own mind and keep it under one's own control.”

“You do not bestow a benefit upon a man by ceasing to wrong him, nor can it ever be a piece of good service to anyone to remove from him a burden which you yourself imposed on him.”

“There is no one so highly placed by fortune as not to need a friend all the more because he needs nothing.”

“If you are useful to your friend only when he is in distress, and are superfluous when all goes well with him, you form a mean estimate of your own value.”

“He who thinks too much about repaying a benefit must suppose that his friend thinks too much about receiving repayment.”

“No one who has ever applied himself to philosophy ever becomes completely wicked; his mind becomes so deeply coloured with it, that its tints can never be entirely spoiled and blackened.”

“You will make your friend a better man by bearing with him, you will in all cases make him a worse one by reproaching him.”

“Our friend is not such a man as we hoped he was; still, let us, unlike him, remain the same as we were.”

“Even in the case of those benefits which appear to be lost, gentleness will do much good; the wounds of the mind ought to be handled as tenderly as those of the body.”

“No one can merely go wrong by himself, but he must become both the cause and adviser of another’s wrongdoing.”

“Let us therefore inquire, not what is most commonly done, but what is best for us to do.”

“The highest good is a mind which despises the accidents of fortune, and takes pleasure in virtue.”

“The happy man, therefore, is he who can make a right judgment in all things: he is happy who in his present circumstances, whatever they may be, is satisfied and on friendly terms with the conditions of his life.”

“A man should be unbiased and not be conquered by external things: he ought to admire himself alone, to feel confidence in his own spirit, and so to order his life as to be ready alike for good or for bad fortune.”

“You may, then, boldly declare that the highest good is singleness of mind: for where agreement and unity exist, the virtues must be present: it is the vices that are at war one with another.”

“You are mistaken, therefore, when you ask me what it is on account of which I seek after virtue: for you are seeking for something above the highest.”

“Too much pleasure is hurtful: but with virtue we need fear no excess of any kind, because moderation is contained in virtue herself.”

“Whatever I may possess, I will neither hoard it greedily nor squander it recklessly.”

“I will do nothing because of public opinion, but everything because of conscience: whenever I do anything alone by myself I will believe that the eyes of the Roman people are upon me while I do it.”

“In eating and drinking my object shall be to quench the desires of Nature, not to fill and empty my belly.”

“In short, my riches belong to me, you belong to your riches.”

“Cease, then, forbidding philosophers to possess money: no one has condemned wisdom to poverty.”

“Place me as master in the house of a very rich man: place me where gold and silver plate is used for the commonest purposes; I shall not think more of myself because of things which even though they are in my house are yet no part of me.”

“In all cases where one feels ashamed to confess the real cause of one’s suffering, and where modesty leads one to drive one’s sufferings inward, the desires pent up in a little space without any vent choke one another.”

“The services of a good citizen are never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk.”

“We ought, however, first to examine our own selves, next the business which we propose to transact, next those for whose sake or in whose company we transact it.”

“It is above all things necessary to form a true estimate of oneself, because as a rule we think that we can do more than we are able.”

“No good is done by forcing one’s mind to engage in uncongenial work: it is vain to struggle against Nature.”

“We should choose for our friends men who are, as far as possible, free from strong desires: for vices are contagious, and pass from a man to his neighbour, and injure those who touch them.”

“Look upon the universe: you will see the gods quite bare of property, and possessing nothing though they give everything.”

“In every station of life you will find amusements, relaxations, and enjoyments; that is, provided you are willing to make light of evils rather than to hate them.”

“No condition can be so wretched that an impartial mind can find no compensations in it.”

“Call good sense to your aid against difficulties: it is possible to soften what is harsh, to widen what is too narrow, and to make heavy burdens press less severely upon one who bears them skilfully.”

“Neither let us envy those who are in high places: the heights which look lofty to us are steep and rugged.”

“I shall never be ashamed to quote a good saying because it comes from a bad author.”

“Know then that every station of life is transitory, and that what has ever happened to anybody may happen to you also.”

“So deeply has this evil of being guided by the opinion of others taken root in us, that even grief, the simplest of all emotions, begins to be counterfeited.”

“Still, we must observe moderation in this matter, for there is a great difference between living simply and living slovenly.”

“Men’s minds ought to have relaxation: they rise up better and more vigorous after rest.”

“There is a great difference between slackening your hold of a thing and letting it go.”

“It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.”

“Unbroken prosperity cannot bear a single blow; but he who has waged an unceasing strife with his misfortunes has gained a thicker skin by his sufferings, yields to no disaster, and even though he falls yet fights on his knee.”

“I think you unhappy because you never have been unhappy: you have passed through your life without meeting an antagonist: no one will know your powers, not even you yourself.”

“Do not, I beg you, dread those things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs: misfortune is virtue’s opportunity.”

“While all excesses are hurtful, excess of comfort is the most hurtful of all; it affects the brain; it leads men’s minds into vain imaginings; it spreads a thick cloud over the boundaries of truth and falsehood.”

“Familiarity with danger leads us to despise it.”

“There is no unhappiness in what habit has made part of one’s nature: by degrees men find pleasure in doing what they were first driven to do by necessity.”

“The fates guide us, and the length of every man’s days is decided at the first hour of his birth: every cause depends upon some earlier cause: one long chain of destiny decides all things, public or private.”

“The invulnerable is not that which is never struck, but that which is never wounded.”

“Now fortune does not give virtue; therefore she does not take it away.”

“Virtue is free, inviolable, not to be moved, not to be shaken, and so hardened against misfortunes that she cannot be bent, let alone overcome by them.”

“Good men are at peace among themselves; bad ones are equally harmful to the good and to one another.”

“Some are unwilling to hear about their age and grey hairs, and all the rest of what men pray to arrive at.”

“How late it is to begin life just when we have to be leaving it!”

“Our swiftness in making use of our time ought therefore to vie with the swiftness of time itself, and we ought to drink of it as we should of a fast-running torrent which will not be always running.”

“It is the privilege of a tranquil and peaceful mind to review all the parts of its life: but the minds of busy men are like animals under the yoke, and cannot bend aside or look back.”

“True wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in moulding our conduct according to her laws and model.”

“How far happier is he who is indebted to no man for anything except for what he can deprive himself of with the greatest ease!”

“All life is slavery: let each man therefore reconcile himself to his lot, complain of it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good lies within his reach.”

“A man is no less a bandit because his sword becomes entangled in his victim’s clothes and misses its mark.”

“Men set the greatest store upon presents or pensions, and hire out their work, their services, or their care in order to gain them: no one values time: they give it much more freely, as though it cost nothing.”

“Yet nothing delights the mind so much as faithful and pleasant friendship.”

“We do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.”

“One’s whole life must be spent in learning how to live, and, which may perhaps surprise you more, one’s whole life must be spent in learning how to die.”

“Postponement is the greatest waste of life: it wrings day after day from us, and takes away the present by promising something hereafter.”

“The sword of justice is ill-placed in the hands of an angry man.”

“Nothing is more bitter than long uncertainty; some can bear to have their hopes extinguished better than to have them deferred.”

“It is much better to devote yourself to a few writers than to skim through many.”