Quotes by "Lucius Annaeus Seneca"

It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

Timendi causa est nescire - Ignorance is the cause of fear.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum: 'to err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

To win true freeedom you must be a slave to philosophy.

I have learned to be a friend to myself Great improvement this indeed Such a one can never be said to be alone for know that he who is a friend to himself is a friend to all mankind

I am not a ‘wise man,’ nor . . . shall I ever be. And so require not from me that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked. It is enough for me if every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes.

Huius (sapientis) opus unum est de divinis humanisque verum invenire; ab hac numquam recedit religio, pietas, iustitia ...

For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it? A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.

The part of life we really live is small.' For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

Leisure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.

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

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.

Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.

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.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.