Quotes by Seneca

"He is the most powerful who has himself, in his power."

Seneca on power   

"Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration."

Seneca on power   

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

Seneca on prayer   

"We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods."

Seneca on prayer   

"We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them."

Seneca on procrastination
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"Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can't find."

Seneca on proverbs   

"The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin."

Seneca on punishment   

"Every guilty person is his own hangman."

Seneca on punishment   

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

Seneca on punishment   

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

Seneca on purpose   

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

Seneca on quotations
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"It is part of the cure to wish to be cured."

Seneca on remedies   

"He who repents of having sinned is almost innocent."

Seneca on repentance   

"Remove severe restraint and what will become of virtue?"

Seneca on restraint   

"What should a wise person do when given a blow? Same as Cato when he was attacked; not fire up or revenge the insult., or even return the blow, but simply ignore it."

Seneca on revenge
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"The acquisition of riches has been to many not an end to their miseries, but a change in them: The fault is not in the riches, but the disposition."

Seneca on riches   

"To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself."

Seneca on safety   

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

Seneca on salvation   

"Whatever has overstepped its due bounds is always in a state of instability."

Seneca on security   

"There's one blessing only, the source and cornerstone of beatitude -- confidence in self."

Seneca on self-confidence
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"Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs."

Seneca on knowledge   

"If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh."

Seneca on sensuality   

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

Seneca on service   

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"What madness it is for a man to starve himself to enrich his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him."

Seneca on service   

"Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit."

Seneca on shame   

"It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin."

Seneca on sin   

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

Seneca on sin   

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

Seneca on slavery   

"When ever the speech is corrupted so is the mind."

Seneca on speakers and speaking
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"When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people."

Seneca on speakers and speaking   

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

Seneca on success   

"Success consecrates the most offensive crimes."

Seneca on success   

"What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember."

Seneca on suffering   

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

Seneca on suffering   

"Calamity is virtue's opportunity."

Seneca on calamity   

"Many shed tears merely for show, and have dry eyes when no one's around to observe them."

Seneca on tears   

"Time discovered truth."

Seneca on time
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"The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty."

Seneca on time   

"Whenever you hold a fellow creature in distress, remember that he is a man."

Seneca on tolerance   

"What is true belongs to me!"

Seneca on truth