Quotes by Seneca

"No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition."

Seneca on ancestry   

"He who boasts of his descent, praises the deed of another."

Seneca on ancestry   

"The pleasures of the palate deal with us like the Egyptian thieves, who strangle those whom they embrace."

Seneca on glutton   

"If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him."

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

Seneca on goals
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"Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind."

Seneca on goals   

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

Seneca on god   

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

Seneca on gratitude
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"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."

Seneca on gratitude   

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

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

Seneca on greatness   

"For greed all nature is too little."

Seneca on greed   

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

Seneca on grief   

"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."

Seneca on grief   

"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not."

Seneca on happiness   

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

Seneca on hatred
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"No one can be despised by another until he has learned to despise himself."

Seneca on hatred
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Who can hope for nothing, should despair for nothing."

Seneca on hope
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"Whatever is well said by another, is mine."

Seneca on imitation   

"Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardship of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die."

Seneca on indecision   

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

Seneca on individuality   

"It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it."

Seneca on insults   

"In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul."

Seneca on invention and inventor   

"If you would judge, understand."

Seneca on judgment and judges
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"If you judge, investigate."

Seneca on judgment and judges
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"May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense."

Seneca on justice   

"Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness"

Seneca on kindness
10 fans of this quote   

"The foremost art of kings is the ability to endure hatred."

Seneca on kings   

"He is a king who fears nothing, he is a king who desires nothing!"

Seneca on kings   

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

Seneca on laughter   

"No one is laughable who laughs at himself."

Seneca on laughter   

"He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule."

Seneca on leadership   

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

Seneca on learning   

"A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty."

Seneca on liberty   

"The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave."

Seneca on liberty   

"So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you."

Seneca on life   

"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?"

Seneca on life   

"Life is warfare."

Seneca on life
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This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing."

Seneca on life   

"Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."

Seneca on anger