Famous Quotes

Quotes by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

• A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
• A great fortune is a great slavery.
• A great mind becomes a great fortune.
• A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.
• A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.
• All art is but imitation of nature.
• Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
• Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
• Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
• As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
• As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
• Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.
• Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.
• Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
• Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune all these are names of the one and selfsame God.
• Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
• Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.
• Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.
• Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
• For greed all nature is too little.
• For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.
• Genius always gives its best at first prudence, at last.
• God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is.
• Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.
• He that does good to another does good also to himself.
• He who has great power should use it lightly.
• Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
• I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.
• I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.
• I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
• I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?
• If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
• If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.
• If you wished to be loved, love.
• Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both this is an observation of the Middle Way.
• In war there is no prize for runner-up.
• In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.
• It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
• It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.
• It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.