126 Inspiring Quotes by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.

Fidelity purchased with money, money can destroy.

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.

He who is brave is free.

While we wait for life, life passes.

Ignorance is the cause of fear.

To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

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

If you wished to be loved, love.

If you judge, investigate.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.

The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

I don't consider myself bald, I'm just taller than my hair.

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.

Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

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.

It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters.

May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.

Every reign must submit to a greater reign.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

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.

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

Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.

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.

You should … live in such a way that there is nothing which you could not as easily tell your enemy as keep to yourself.

For greed all nature is too little.

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

Of this one thing make sure against your dying day -- that your faults die before you do.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.

You learn to know a pilot in a storm.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

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.

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

Love in its essence is spiritual fire.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

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.

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.

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

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

The wish for healing has always been half of health.

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

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

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

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

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

Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

What is true belongs to me!

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

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

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

A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

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

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.

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.

The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.

The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

Life's like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

A great fortune is a great slavery.

It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.

A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

Life is warfare.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence about the future.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

What is harder than rock? What is softer than water? Yet hard rocks are hollowed out by soft water?

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.

If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

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

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?