Seneca

We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future one.

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.

We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.

No one can wear a mask for very long.
Seneca - Letters to Lucilius V
Fear keeps pace with hope. Nor does their so moving together surprise me; both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present. Thus it is that foresight, the greatest blessing humanity has been given, is transformed into a curse.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
Seneca - Epistles
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.

Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order.

Toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him.
Seneca - Epistles
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.

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.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

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

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

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

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.

The path of precept is long, that of example short and effectual.

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 abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

What does reason demand of a man? A very easy thing--to live in accord with his nature.

Life without the courage for death is slavery.
Seneca - Moral Letters to Lucilius, 64 A.D.
Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.

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

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

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

What once were vices are manners now.

Unjust dominion cannot be eternal.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his power.
Seneca - Epistles
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.

Speech is the mirror of the mind.
(Imago Animi Sermo Est)

One hand washes the other.
(Manus Manum Lavet)

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

He who spares the wicked injures the good.

Many things have fallen only to rise higher.

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 denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity.
Seneca - Epistles
The best ideas are common property.
Seneca - Epistles
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

As was his language so was his life.
Seneca - Epistles
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

All art is an imitation of nature.

Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable.

Without an adversary prowess shrivels. We see how great and efficient it really is only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of.

There is no great genius free from some tincture of madness.

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?

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

Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.
Seneca - Epistles
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.

An unpopular rule is never long maintained.

To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour the body.

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

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

One should count each day a separate life.

To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind.

Be not too hasty either with praise or blame; speak always as though you were giving evidence before the judgement-seat of the Gods.

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

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.

The mind is slow to unlearn what it learnt early.

It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.

The arts are the servant; wisdom its master.

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.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

To see a man fearless in dangers. untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
Seneca - Epistles
It is better, of cours, to know useless things than to know nothing.

While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.

I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better then the bad.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.

It is pleasant at times to play the madman.

truth never perishes (Veritas numquam perit)

Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
Seneca - Epistulae Morales
"Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life. "

The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.

He will live ill who does not know how to die well.
Seneca - Epistuloe ad Lucilium, Epis. LXX, 9
Everything may happen. (Omnio fieri possent.)

I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge.

It is rash to condemn where you are ignorant.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.
Seneca - 65 AD
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Seneca - Epistles
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

If virtue precede us every step will be safe.

Time heals what reason cannot.

Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.

Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.

- Seneca