Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes:

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Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
True happiness is...to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
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.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
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.
Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.
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.
It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.
We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.
Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
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?
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.
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.
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.
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
No man was ever wise by chance.
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.
So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.
All art is but imitation of nature.
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.
The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.
That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.
The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.
Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.
Every sin is the result of a collaboration.
Time discovers truth.
It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.
Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.
When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
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.
There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.
Life, if well lived, is long enough.
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.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
He that does good to another does good also to himself.
If you judge, investigate.
If you would judge, understand.
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.
Where fear is, happiness is not.
Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.
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.
The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.
A great mind becomes a great fortune.
A great fortune is a great slavery.
Every guilty person is his own hangman.
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.
Life's like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.
Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.
The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.
See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it."
It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.
The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.
One must steer, not talk.
Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.
In war there is no prize for runner-up.
Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns.
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
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.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.
Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.
The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.
Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man... It is more powerful than external circumstances.
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
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.
No one is laughable who laughs at himself.
A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.
He who has great power should use it lightly.
True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.
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.
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.
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.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
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.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

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