Seneca the Elder Quotes

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

We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?

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

What you think about yourself is much more important than what others think of you.

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.

Failure changes for the better, success for the worse.

You can end love more easily than you can moderate it.

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

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

The mind is slow to unlearn what it learnt early.

Let us be brave in the face of adversity.

Nothing is our except time.

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

To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

The road to learning by precept is long, but by example short and effective.

Unhappy is the man, though he rule the world, who doesn't consider himself supremely blessed.

If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him.

It is wrong not to give a hand to the fallen. This right is common to the whole human race.

If you wish to fear nothing, consider that everything is to be feared.

What is the proper limit for wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary; and, second, to have what is enough.

Add each day something to fortify you against poverty and death.

For the great benefits of our being- our life, health, and reason-we look upon ourselves.

Malice drinks one-half of its own poison.

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

All art is an imitation of nature.

No man will swim ashore and take his baggage with him.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.

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.

If you want to be loved, love.

The conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil awhile, endure awhile, believe always, and never turn back

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

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

The sun also shines on the wicked.

Courage is a scorner of things which inspire fear.

Courage leads starward, fear toward death.

No evil is without its compensation ... it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss, that troubles us.

Unhappy is the man, though he rule the world, who doesn't consider himself supremely blessed. In order to consider himself supremely blessed he must deeply understand that things could be much worse but aren't! To not do that is to always be less happy than he could be.

Know this, that he that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all men.

No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.

There's some end at last for the man who follows a path; mere rambling is interminable.

The great soul surrenders itself to fate.

He who looks for advantage out of friendship strips it all of its nobility.

It is not death we fear, but the thought of it.

When in fear, it is safest to force the attack.

Fortune reveres the brave, and overwhelms the cowardly.

It is for the superfluous things of life that men sweat.

It is not manly to turn one's back on fortune.