Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotes & Sayings

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

#2. He has committed the crime who profits by it.

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

#4. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#5. If you judge, investigate.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#6. The way is long if one follows precepts, but short ... if one follows patterns.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#7. Where fear is, happiness is not.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#8. The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#9. No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#10. That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#12. Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#16. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#18. The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#19. Modesty forbids what the law does not.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#20. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#21. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#22. He that does good to another does good also to himself.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#23. Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#24. 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?

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#25. Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#27. Love in its essence is spiritual fire.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#29. Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#30. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#33. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#34. One crime has to be concealed by another.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#35. To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#36. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#38. A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#39. Do everything as in the eye of another.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#45. One must steer, not talk.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#46. I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#47. Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#49. No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#51. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#52. Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#54. The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#55. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#56. The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#57. There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#58. When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#59. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#60. When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#62. For greed all nature is too little.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#63. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#65. A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#66. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#67. Every guilty person is his own hangman.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#68. When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#69. The wish for healing has always been half of health.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#70. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#71. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#73. Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#75. The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#76. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#77. Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#79. Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#81. He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#83. A great fortune is a great slavery.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#84. He who has great power should use it lightly.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#86. We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#87. 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.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca