Seneca Quotes - Page 2

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 ...

We are born under circumstances that would be favorable if we did not abandon them. It was nature's intention that there should be no need of great equipment for a good life: every individual can make himself happy.

What man
can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is
dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed,
Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

If anyone says that the best life of all is to sail the sea, and then adds that I must not sail upon a sea where shipwrecks are a common occurrence and there are often sudden storms that sweep the helmsman in an adverse direction, I conclude that this man, although he lauds navigation, really forbids me to launch my ship.

Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all.

distringit librorum multitudo

(the abundance of books is distraction)

It's not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.

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.

Es ist nicht wenig Zeit, die wir haben, sondern es ist viel Zeit, die wir nicht nutzen.

So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not Ill-supplied but wasteful of it.

A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

How many men soever you slay, you will never kill your successor.

A woman is not beautiful when her ankle or arm wins compliments, but when her total appearance diverts admiration from the individual parts of her body.

Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; ... in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is.

Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu

He who is brave is free

Qui mori didicit servire dedidicit.

There is but one chain holding us in fetters, and that is our love of life.

How silly then to imagine that the human mind, which is formed of the same elements as divine beings, objects to movement and change of abode, while the divine nature finds delight and even self-preservation in continual and very rapid change.