Seneca quotes
Seneca (4 BC–65): Roman Stoic philosopher and dramatist. The library holds 246 quotes by Seneca, drawn from Hercules Furens, On a Happy Life, De Tranquillitate Animi and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, faith, power, time, money, friendship
The best-known Seneca quotes
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Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.
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Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration, but temper and moderation generally produce permanence in all things.
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No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
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Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.
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There’s no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
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There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.
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Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.
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He is greedy of life who is unwilling to die when the world around him is perishing.
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He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.
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A kindness is always delightful to a grateful man; to an ungrateful, only at the time of its receipt.
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We keep the faults of others before our eyes; our own behind our backs.
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Men trust their eyes rather than their ears: the road by precept is long and tedious, by example short and effectual.
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To cleanse the Augean stables, i.e., achieve an arduous and disagreeable work.
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This is especially ruinous to us, that we shape our lives not by the light of reason, but after the fashion of others.
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The pleasures of the palate deal with us like Egyptian thieves who strangle those whom they embrace.
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The man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.
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There is no benefit so small, that a good man will not magnify it.
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Levity of behaviour is the bane of all that is good and virtuous.
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Overtasking the mind is an unwise act; when nature is unwilling, the labour is vain.
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Not to return one good office for another is inhuman; but to return evil for good is diabolical.
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It is an arduous task to make all men your friends; it is enough to have no enemies.
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What narrow innocence it is for one to be good only according to the law.
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We shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it.
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That is never too often repeated which is never sufficiently learned.
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Make choice of him who recommends himself to you by his life as well as address.
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A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.
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He who is indolent should work, and he who works should take repose.
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There are more things to alarm than to harm us, and we suffer much oftener in apprehension than reality.
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Were wisdom given me with this reservation, that I should keep it shut up within myself and not impart it, I would spurn it.
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There is no man so rudely punished as he that is subject to the whip of his own remorse.
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Before old age, it was my chief care to live well; in old age, it is to die well.
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Many shed tears merely for show; and have their eyes quite dry whenever there is no one to observe them.
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With parsimony a little is sufficient, and without it nothing is sufficient, whereas frugality makes a poor man rich.
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He is an ungrateful man who is unwilling to acknowledge his obligation before others.
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Our thoughts break through the muniments of heaven, and are not satisfied with knowing what is offered to sense observation.
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There is nothing more despicable than an old man who has no other proof than his age to offer of his having lived long in the world.
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No one ever held power long by violence; it lasts only when wielded with moderation.
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As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without culture, so the mind without cultivation can never produce good fruit.
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It is base to say one thing and to think another; how much more base to write one thing and think another!
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Without a friend to share it, no good we possess is truly enjoyable.
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He that visits the sick, in the hope of a legacy, I look upon him in this to be no better than a raven, that watches a weak sheep only to peck out the eyes of it.
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The acquisition of riches has been to many, not the end of their miseries, but a change in them; the fault is not in the riches, but in the disposition.
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We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.
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The mouths of lions are with impunity handled by their keepers.
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The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
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Why is there no man who confesses his vices? It is because he has not yet laid them aside. It is a waking man only who can tell his dreams.
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Other men’s sins are before our eyes, our own are behind our back.
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I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.
On a Happy Life. 2 -
The vice of doing nothing is only to be shaken off by doing something.
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Great men often rejoice at crosses of fortune, just as brave soldiers do at wars.
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He employs riches to the best purpose who least needs them.
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Nothing is void of God; His work everywhere is full of Himself.
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Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.
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He who offers to the wretched a dubious deliverance, denies all hope.
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It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.
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Such as the chain of causes we call Fate, such is the chain of wishes: one links on to another; the whole man is bound in the chain of wishing for ever.
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No book can be so good as to be profitable when negligently read.
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So live with men, as if God saw you; so speak to God, as if men heard you.
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What should a wise man do if he is given a blow? What Cato did when some one struck him on the mouth;—not fire up or revenge the insult, or even return the blow, but simply ignore it.
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It takes an age to build a city, but an hour involves it in ruin. A forest is long in growing, but in a moment it may be reduced to ashes.
Where these quotes come from
- Hercules Furens (2 quotes)
- On a Happy Life (1 quote)
- De Tranquillitate Animi (1 quote)
- De Providentia (1 quote)
- Thyestes (1 quote)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .