Seneca

If it will be any consolation to you in your bereavement to know that it is the common lot of all, be assured that nothing will continue to stand in the place in which it now stands,

but that time will lay everything low
and bear it away with itself:

it will sport, not only with men—for how small a part are they of the dominion of Fortune?—but with districts, provinces, quarters of the world: it will efface entire mountains, and in other places will pile new rocks on high: it will dry up seas, change the course of rivers, destroy the intercourse of nation with nation, and break up the communion and fellowship of the human race: in other regions it will swallow up cities by opening vast chasms in the earth, will shake them with earthquakes, will breathe forth pestilence from the nether world, cover all habitable ground with inundations and destroy every creature in the flooded world, or burn up all mortals by a huge conflagration. *

When the time shall arrive for the world to be brought to an end, that it may begin its life anew, all the forces of nature will perish in conflict with one another, the stars will be dashed together, and all the lights which now gleam in regular order in various parts of the sky will then blaze in one fire with all their fuel burning at once. Then we also, the souls of the blest and the heirs of eternal life, whenever God thinks fit to reconstruct the universe, when all things are settling down again, we also, being a small accessory to the universal wreck, shall be changed into our old elements. Happy is your son, Marcia, in that he already knows this.

Seneca

Of Consolation: To Marcia, 26

He says: "Contented poverty is an honourable estate." Indeed, if it be contented, it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour's property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come?

Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth?

It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.

Seneca

Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius, letter 2 – On discursiveness in reading.

I see in myself, Lucilius, not just an improvement, but a transformation.

Seneca

Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius, 6.

Besides, he who is feared, fears also; no one has been able to arouse terror and live in peace of mind.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CV: On Facing the World With Confidence

A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 91

We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason – to separate the sound from the worthless.

Seneca

Moral and Political Essays

Toward good men God has the mind of a father, he cherishes for them a manly love, and he says, "Let them be harassed by toil, by suffering, by losses, in order that they may gather true strength." Bodies grown fat through sloth are weak, and not only labour, but even movement and their very weight cause them to break down. Unimpaired prosperity cannot withstand a single blow; but he who has struggled constantly with his ills becomes hardened through suffering; and yields to no misfortune; nay, even if he falls, he still fights upon his knees.

Seneca

De Providentia (On Providence), 2.6

You have, dearest Serene, things that can protect tranquility, things that restore it, things that resist creeping escapes. Be it known, however, that none of these things is sufficient for those who hold a feeble matter, unless a constant concern surrounds the slipping mind.

Seneca

Dialogi de Tranquillitate Animi

No man ought to glory except in that which is his own.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLI: On the god within us

Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXIV: On despising death

You will thus understand that what you fear is either insignificant or short-lived.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXIV: On despising death

The archer must know what he is seeking to hit; then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind. Chance must necessarily have great influence over our lives, because we live by chance. It is the case with certain men, however, that they do not know that they know certain things. Just as we often go searching for those who stand beside us, so we are apt to forget that the goal of the Supreme Good lies near us.

Seneca

Epistles, Volume II

Learn to be content with little, and cry out with courage and with greatness of soul: ‘We have water, we have porridge; let us compete in happiness with Jupiter himself.’

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CX: On True and False Riches

Drunkenness inflames and lays bare every vice, removing the reserve that acts as a chuck on impulses to wrong behaviour.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 83

I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties. Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLVII: On master and slave

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

Seneca

De Ira (On Anger); Book III, Chapter V

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 1 – On Saving Time

I am endeavouring to live every day as if it were a complete life.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXI: On meeting death cheerfully

Imagine that nature is saying to us: “Those things of which you complain are the same for all. I cannot give anything easier to any man, but whoever wishes will make things easier for himself.” In what way? By equanimity. You must suffer pain, and thirst, and hunger, and old age too, if a longer stay among men shall be granted you; you must be sick, and you must suffer loss and death.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCI: On the Lesson to be Drawn From the Burning of Lyons

You do not know where death awaits you; so be ready for it everywhere.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXVI: On Old Age and Death

What anger is has been sufficiently explained. The difference between it and irascibility is evident: it is the same as that between a drunken man and a drunkard; between a frightened man and a coward. It is possible for an angry man not to be irascible; an irascible man may sometimes not be angry. I shall omit the other varieties of anger, which the Greeks distinguish by various names, because we have no distinctive words for them in our language, although we call men bitter and harsh, and also peevish, frantic, clamorous, surly and fierce: all of which are different forms of irascibility.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

When we leave you and assemble together by ourselves, we talk freely about his sayings and doings, treating them with the respect which they deserve: in your presence deep silence is observed about him, and thus you lose that greatest of pleasures, the hearing the praises of your son, which I doubt not you would be willing to hand down to all future ages, had you the means of so doing, even at the cost of your own life.

Seneca

To Marcia on Consolation

Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXVII

Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

At any rate, if you wish to sift doubtful meanings of this kind, teach us that the happy man is not he whom the crowd deems happy, namely, he into whose coffers mighty sums have flowed, but he whose possessions are all in his soul, who is upright and exalted, who spurns inconstancy, who sees no man with whom he wishes to change places, who rates men only at their value as men, who takes Nature for his teacher, conforming to her laws and living as she commands, whom no violence can deprive of his possessions, who turns evil into good, is unerring in judgment, unshaken, unafraid, who may be moved by force but never moved to distraction, whom Fortune when she hurls at him with all her might the deadliest missile in her armoury, may graze, though rarely, but never wound.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLV: On sophistical argumentation

These actions are not essentially difficult; it is we ourselves that are soft and flabby.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXI: On the supreme good

Octavia lost Marcellus, whom both his father-in-law and his uncle had begun to depend upon, and to place upon his shoulders the weight of the empire — a young man of keen intelligence and firm character, frugal and moderate in his desires to an extent which deserved especial admiration in one so young and so wealthy, strong to endure labour, averse to indulgence, and able to bear whatever burden his uncle might choose to lay, or I may say to pile upon his shoulders. Augustus had well chosen him as a foundation, for he would not have given way under any weight, however excessive.

Seneca

To Marcia on Consolation

Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth. Do you not see how in all animals certain signs appear before they proceed to mischief, and how their entire bodies put off their usual quiet appearance and stir up their ferocity? Boars foam at the mouth and sharpen their teeth by rubbing them against trees, bulls toss their horns in the air and scatter the sand with blows of their feet.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

Very often the things that cost nothing cost us the most heavily; I can show you many objects the quest and acquisition of which have wrested freedom from our hands.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLII: On Values

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter IV: On the terrors of death

You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive; even when you have been cured, the same end awaits you; when you have recovered, it will be not death, but ill health, that you have escaped.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

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

Seneca

De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 28

Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXIX: On Noble Aspirations

No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter IV: On the terrors of death

It is essential to make oneself used to putting up with a little. Even the wealthy and the well provided are continually met and frustrated by difficult times and situations. It is in no man’s power to have whatever he wants; but he has it in his power not to wish for what he hasn’t got, and cheerfully make the most of the things that do come his way.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 122

When the changes of our times gave you an opportunity, you restored to the use of man that genius of your father for which he had suffered, and made him in real truth immortal by publishing as an eternal memorial of him those books which that bravest of men had written with his own blood. You have done a great service to Roman literature: a large part of Cordus’s books had been burned; a great service to posterity, who will receive a true account of events, which cost its author so dear; and a great service to himself, whose memory flourishes and ever will flourish, as long as men set any value upon the facts of Roman history, as long as anyone lives who wishes to review the deeds of our fathers, to know what a true Roman was like — one who still remained unconquered when all other necks were broken in to receive the yoke of Sejanus, one who was free in every thought, feeling, and act.

Seneca

To Marcia on Consolation

It is disgraceful, instead of proceeding ahead, to be carried along, and then suddenly, amid the whirlpool of events, to ask in a dazed way: “How did I get into this condition?”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXVII: On Allegiance to Virtue

I will tell you: that perfect man, who has attained virtue, never cursed his luck, and never received the results of chance with dejection; he believed that he was citizen and soldier of the universe, accepting his tasks as if they were his orders. Whatever happened, he did not spurn it, as if it were evil and borne in upon him by hazard; he accepted it as if it were assigned to be his duty. “Whatever this may be,” he says, “it is my lot; it is rough and it is hard, but I must work diligently at the task.”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CXX: More About Virtue

Would not anyone who is a man have his slumbers broken by a war-trumpet rather than by a chorus of serenaders?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LI: On Baiae and Morals

But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXIV: On Virtue as a Refuge From Worldly Distractions

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter II: On discursiveness in reading

There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears

“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.

Seneca

quoting Hecato, in Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter VI: On precepts and exemplars

Let another say. “Perhaps the worst will not happen.” You yourself must say. “Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins! Perhaps it happens for my best interests; it may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life.”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears

Press on, therefore, as you have begun; perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XX: On practicing what you preach

We are weak, watery beings standing in the midst of unrealities; therefore let us turn our minds to the things that are everlasting.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LVIII: On Being

So I look for the best and am prepared for the opposite.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 88

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application - not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech - and learn them so well that words become works.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 108

Glory’s an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather. Poverty’s no evil to anyone unless he kicks against it. Death is not an evil. What is it then? The one law mankind has that is free of all discrimination. Superstition is an idiotic heresy: it fears those it should love: it dishonours those it worships. For what difference does it make whether you deny the gods or bring them into disrepute?

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 122

Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in which we lay before we were born. If anyone pities the dead, he ought also to pity those who have not been born. Death is neither a good nor a bad thing, for that alone which is something can be a good or a bad thing: but that which is nothing, and reduces all things to nothing, does not hand us over to either fortune, because good and bad require some material to work upon. Fortune cannot take ahold of that which Nature has let go, nor can a man be unhappy if he is nothing.

Seneca

Dialogi de Tranquillitate Animi

So near at hand is freedom, and is anyone still a slave?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life

...pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments…

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 83

Or, if you enjoy living with Greeks also, spend your time with Socrates and with Zeno: the former will show you how to die if it be necessary; the latter how to die before it is necessary. Live with Chrysippus, with Posidonius: they will make you acquainted with things earthly and things heavenly; they will bid you work hard over something more than neat turns of language and phrases mouthed forth for the entertainment of listeners; they will bid you be stout of heart and rise superior to threats. The only harbour safe from the seething storms of this life is scorn of the future, a firm stand, a readiness to receive Fortune’s missiles full in the breast, neither skulking nor turning the back.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“New friends, however, will not be the same.” No, nor will you yourself remain the same; you change with every day and every hour.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in the arms of liberty.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

There are times when even to live is an act of bravery. So there is the comforting thing about extremities of pain: if you feel it too much you are bound to stop feeling it. The love of power or money or luxurious living are not the only things which are guided by popular thinking. We take our cue from people’s thinking even in the way we feel pain. Another thing which will help you is to turn your mind to other thoughts and that way get away from your suffering. Call to mind things which you have done that have been upright or courageous; run over in your mind the finest parts you have played. ‘But my illness has taken me away from my duties and won’t allow me to achieve anything.’ It is your body, not your mind as well, that is in the grip of ill health.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 78

He that owns himself has lost nothing. But how few men are blessed with ownership of self!

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLII: On Values

Thus they are deceived by the likeness of blows, and are appeased by the pretended tears of those who deprecate their wrath, and thus an unreal grief is healed by an unreal revenge.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

One thing I know: all the works of mortal man lie under sentence of mortality; we live among things that are destined to perish.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 91

Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all—the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXXI: On benefits

You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXVIII: On travel as a cure for discontent

Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march, or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one of these men says as he begins his march, "The general has dealt hardly with me," but "He has judged well of me."

Seneca

De Providentia (On Providence), 4.8

There is no sorrow in the world, when we have escaped from the fear of death.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

Who is everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter II: On discursiveness in reading

All vices sink into our whole being, if we do not crush them before they gain a footing; and in like manner these sad, pitiable, and discordant feelings end by feeding upon their own bitterness, until the unhappy mind takes a sort of morbid delight in grief... In like manner, wounds heal easily when the blood is fresh upon them: they can then be cleared out and brought to the surface, and admit of being probed by the finger: when disease has turned them into malignant ulcers, their cure is more difficult.

Seneca

To Marcia on Consolation

You assured me that I should be unterrified though swords were flashing round me, though the point of the blade were grazing my throat; you assured me that I should be at ease though fires were blazing round me, or though a sudden whirlwind should snatch up my ship and carry it over all the sea. Now make good for me such a course of treatment that I may despise pleasure and glory. Thereafter you shall teach me to work out complicated problems, to settle doubtful points, to see through that which is not clear; teach me now what it is necessary for me to know!

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIX: On the Fellowship of Wise Men

Do you ask me whom I have conquered? Neither the Persians, nor the far-off Medes, nor any warlike race that lies beyond the Dahae; not these, but greed, ambition, and the fear of death that has conquered the conquerors of the world.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXI: On the supreme good

Anger, as we have said, is eager to punish; and that such a desire should exist in man’s peaceful breast is least of all according to his nature; for human life is founded on benefits and harmony and is bound together into an alliance for the common help of all, not by terror, but by love towards one another.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.

Seneca

De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 34

You have demanded of me, Novatus, that I should write how anger may be soothed, and it appears to me that you are right in feeling especial fear of this passion, which is above all others hideous and wild: for the others have some alloy of peace and quiet, but this consists wholly in action and the impulse of grief, raging with an utterly inhuman lust for arms, blood and tortures, careless of itself provided it hurts another, rushing upon the very point of the sword, and greedy for revenge even when it drags the avenger to ruin with itself.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

I should prefer to be free from torture; but if the time comes when it must be endured, I shall desire that I may conduct myself therein with bravery, honour, and courage. Of course I prefer that war should not occur; but if war does occur, I shall desire that I may nobly endure the wounds, the starvation, and all that the exigency of war brings. Nor am I so mad as to crave illness; but if I must suffer illness, I shall desire that I may do nothing which shows lack of restraint, and nothing that is unmanly. The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 1

"Although," said he [Cato], "all the world has fallen under one man's sway, although Caesar's legions guard the land, his fleets the sea, and Caesar's troops beset the city gates, yet Cato has a way of escape; with one single hand he will open a wide path to freedom. This sword, unstained and blameless even in civil war, shall at last do good and noble service: the freedom which it could not give to his country it shall give to Cato!

Seneca

De Providentia (On Providence), 2.6

For love of bustle is not industry – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter III: On true and false friendship

To animals not only human virtues but even human vices are forbidden: their whole constitution, mental and bodily, is unlike that of human beings... they possess intellect, the greatest attribute of all, but in a rough and inexact condition. It is, consequently, able to grasp those visions and semblances which rouse it to action, but only in a cloudy and indistinct fashion. Their impulses and outbreaks are violent, and that they do not feel fear, anxieties, grief, or anger, but some semblances of these feelings: wherefore they quickly drop them and adopt the converse of them: they graze after showing the most vehement rage and terror, and after frantic bellowing and plunging they straightaway sink into quiet sleep.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner? The light of the sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life

Next, if you choose to view its results and the mischief that it does, no plague has cost the human race more dear.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

I commend you and rejoice in the fact that you are persistent in your studies, and that, putting all else aside, you make it each day your endeavour to become a better man.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter V: On the Philosopher’s Mean

The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet, will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 104

There is nothing dangerous in a man’s having as much power as he likes if he takes the view that he has power to do only what it is his duty to do.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 90

They have been spoken by Plato, spoken by Zeno, spoken by Chrysippus or by Posidonius, and by a whole host of Stoics as numerous as excellent. I shall show you how men can prove their words to be their own: it is by doing what they have been talking about.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CVIII: On the Approaches to Philosophy

There’s no difference between the one and the other — you didn’t exist and you won’t exist — you’ve got no concern with either period. As it is with a play, so it is with life — what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. It is not important at what point you stop. Stop wherever you will — only make sure that you round it off with a good ending.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 77

When it comes to all we’re required to go through, we’re equals. No one is more vulnerable than the next man, and no one can be more sure of his surviving to the morrow.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 91

Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 108

...nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and how… nothing need arouse one’s irritation so long as one doesn’t make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 122

Our minds must have relaxation: rested, they will rise up better and keener. Just as we must not force fertile fields (for uninterrupted production will quickly exhaust them), so continual labor will break the power of our minds. They will recover their strength, however, after they have had a little freedom and relaxation.

Seneca

On Tranquility of the Mind

Thus no fortune, no external circumstance, can shut off the wise man from action. For the very thing which engages his attention prevents him from attending to other things. He is ready for either outcome: if it brings goods, he controls them; if evils, he conquers them.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

We are all chained to fortune: the chain of one is made of gold, and wide, while that of another is short and rusty. But what difference does it make? The same prison surrounds all of us, and even those who have bound others are bound themselves; unless perchance you think that a chain on the left side is lighter. Honors bind one man, wealth another; nobility oppresses some, humility others; some are held in subjection by an external power, while others obey the tyrant within; banishments keep some in one place, the priesthood others. All life is slavery. Therefore each one must accustom himself to his own condition and complain about it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good is to be found near him. Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it. Small tablets, because of the writer's skill, have often served for many purposes, and a clever arrangement has often made a very narrow piece of land habitable. Apply reason to difficulties; harsh circumstances can be softened, narrow limits can be widened, and burdensome things can be made to press less severely on those who bear them cleverly.

Seneca

On Tranquility of the Mind

We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty. And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual. Deeds that would be punished by loss of life when committed in secret, are praised by us because uniformed generals have carried them out. Man, naturally the gentlest class of being, is not ashamed to revel in the blood of others, to wage war, and to entrust the waging of war to his sons, when even dumb beasts and wild beasts keep the peace with one another. Against this overmastering and widespread madness philosophy has become a matter of greater effort, and has taken on strength in proportion to the strength which is gained by the opposition forces.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCV: On the usefulness of basic principles

Let words proceed as they please, provided only your soul keeps its own sure order, provided your soul is great and holds unruffled to its ideals, pleased with itself on account of the very things which displease others, a soul that makes life the test of its progress, and believes that its knowledge is in exact proportion to its freedom from desire and its freedom from fear.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CXV: On the Superficial Blessings

And do you know why we have not the power to attain this Stoic ideal? It is because we refuse to believe in our power. Nay, of a surety, there is something else which plays a part: it is because we are in love with our vices; we uphold them and prefer to make excuses for them rather than shake them off. We mortals have been endowed with sufficient strength by nature, if only we use this strength, if only we concentrate our powers and rouse them all to help us or at least not to hinder us. The reason is unwillingness, the excuse, inability.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CXVI: On Self-Control

Whether we believe the Greek poet, "it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad", or Plato, "he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry"; or Aristotle, "no great genius was without a mixture of insanity"; the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone.

Seneca

On Tranquility of the Mind

My baker may be out of bread, but the farm manager will have some, or the steward, or a tenant. ‘Bad bread, yes!’ you’ll say. Wait, then: it’ll soon turn into good bread. Hunger will make you find even that bread soft and wheaty.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 122

To roam in open walks, that the soul may increase and lift itself up in the free air and with much spirit; sometimes travel and a change of country will give vigor, and marriage and more liberal drink. Sometimes even to the point of drunkenness, not that it drowns us, but that it depresses us: for it washes away cares and moves the mind from below, and, as with certain diseases, so it heals sadness.

Seneca

Dialogi de Tranquillitate Animi

The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XV

What, if you were to pass from the consideration of those single men against whom anger has broken out to view whole assemblies cut down by the sword, the people butchered by the soldiery let loose upon it, and whole nations condemned to death in one common ruin... as though by men who either freed themselves from our charge or despised our authority?

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

It is generally agreed that no activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied – not rhetoric or liberal studies – since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it.

Seneca

De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life), Ch. 7

The wise man is joyful, happy and calm, unshaken, he lives on a plane with the gods.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LIX: On Pleasure and Joy

The mind must be indulged, and leisure must be given from time to time, which is the place of food and strength.

Seneca

Dialogi de Tranquillitate Animi

Armies have endured all manner of want, have lived on roots, and have resisted hunger by means of food too revolting to mention. All this they have suffered to gain a kingdom, and—what is more marvellous—to gain a kingdom that will be another’s. Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XVII: On Philosophy and Riches

And a stomach firmly under control, one that will put up with hard usage, marks a considerable step towards independence.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 122

Virtue runs no risk of becoming contemptible by being exposed to view, and it is better to be despised for simplicity than to be tormented by continual hypocrisy.

Seneca

On Tranquility of the Mind

...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 himself.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 104

It is to this law that our souls must adjust themselves, this they should follow, this they should obey. Whatever happens, assume that it was bound to happen, and do not be willing to rail at Nature. That which you cannot reform, it is best to endure, and to attend uncomplainingly upon the God under whose guidance everything progresses; for it is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CVII: On Obedience to the Universal Will

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LII: On choosing our teachers

The cause of anger is the belief that we are injured; this belief, therefore, should not be lightly entertained. We ought not to fly into a rage even when the injury appears to be open and distinct: for some false things bear the semblance of truth. We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.

Seneca

De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 22

Furthermore, that you may know in what manner passions begin and swell and gain spirit,learn that the first emotion is involuntary, and is, as it were, a preparation for a passion, and a threatening of one.The next is combined with a wish, though not an obstinate one, as, for example, ‘It is my duty to avenge myself, because I have been injured,’ or ‘It is right that this man should be punished, because he has committed a crime.’The third emotion is already beyond our control, because it overrides reason, and wishes to avenge itself, not if it be its duty, but whether or no.We are not able by means of reason to escape from that first impression on the mind, any more than we can escape from those things which we have mentioned as occurring to the body: we cannot prevent other people's yawns tempting us to yawn: we cannot help winking when fingers are suddenly darted at our eyes. Reason is unable to overcome these habits, which perhaps might be weakened by practice and constant watchfulness: they differ from an emotion which is brought into existence and brought to an end by a deliberate mental act.

Seneca

Seneca, on Anger, 2.

He will not, then, be moved by an insult from any man for though all men differ one from another, yet the wise man regards them all as alike on account of their equal folly; for should he once lower himself to the point of being affected by either injury or insult, he could never feel safe afterwards, and safety is the especial advantage of the wise man, and he will not be guilty of showing respect to the man who has done him an injury by admitting that he has received one, because it necessarily follows that he who is disquieted at any one's scorn would value that person's admiration.

Seneca

On the firmness of the wise man, 13

But how much more highly do I think of these men! They can do these things, but decline to do them. To whom that ever tried have these tasks proved false? To what man did they not seem easier in the doing? Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty. The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

By Hercules, the state would have sustained a great loss if you had not brought him forth from the oblivion to which his two splendid qualities, eloquence and independence, had consigned him: he is now read, is popular, is received into men’s hands and bosoms, and fears no old age: but as for those who butchered him, before long men will cease to speak even of their crimes, the only things by which they are remembered.

Seneca

To Marcia on Consolation

Why should I not regard this as desirable—not because the fire burns me, but because it does not overcome me?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXVIII: On travel as a cure for discontent

The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 90

But he has no fear; unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one’s way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter VII: On crowds

Whoever complains about the death of anyone, is complaining that he was a man. Everyone is bound by the same terms: he who is privileged to be born, is destined to die.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCIX: On Consolation to the Bereaved

“They are slaves,” people declare. Nay, rather they are men. “Slaves!” No, comrades. “Slaves!” No, they are unpretentious friends. “Slaves!” No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLVII: On master and slave

People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax. After every act they tremble, paralysed, their consciences continually demanding an answer, not allowing them to get on with other things. To expect punishment is to suffer it; and to earn it is to expect it.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 105

No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, who loves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurable or short.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

And this is the vote which [Cato] casts concerning them both: “If Caesar wins, I slay myself; if Pompey, I go into exile.” What was there for a man to fear who, whether in defeat or in victory, had assigned to himself a doom which might have been assigned to him by his enemies in their utmost rage? So he died by his own decision.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

For this reason those who are tossed about at sea, who proceed uphill and downhill over toilsome crags and heights, who go on campaigns that bring the greatest danger, are heroes and front-rank fighters; but persons who live in rotten luxury and ease while others toil, are mere turtle-doves safe only because men despise them.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCVI

He maintained this attitude up to the very end, and no man ever saw Socrates too much elated or too much depressed. Amid all the disturbance of Fortune, he was undisturbed.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring chance and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CVII: On Obedience to the Universal Will

That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chreia, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them. For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion? How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember. Put forth something from your own stock.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXIII

He knows his own strength; he knows that he was born to carry burdens.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXI: On the supreme good

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter VII: On crowds

Now a life of honour includes various kinds of conduct; it may include the chest in which Regulus was confined, or the wound of Cato which was torn open by Cato’s own hand, or the exile of Rutilius, or the cup of poison which removed Socrates from gaol to heaven.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

What then? Shall I not follow in the footsteps of my predecessors? I shall indeed use the old road, but if I find one that makes a shorter cut and is smoother to travel, I shall open the new road. Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides. Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized. And there is plenty of it left even for posterity to discover.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXIII

Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter VI: On precepts and exemplars

"What," say you, "are you giving me advice? Indeed, have you already advised yourself, already corrected your own faults? Is this the reason why you have leisure to reform other men?" No, I am not so shameless as to undertake to cure my fellow-men when I am ill myself. I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both, and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXVII

For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter L: On Our Blindness and Its Cure

You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. A god is near you, with you, and in you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: there sits a holy spirit within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our a guardian.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLI: On the god within us

Dumb creatures have not human feelings, but have certain impulses which resemble them: for if it were not so, if they could feel love and hate, they would likewise be capable of friendship and enmity, of disagreement and agreement. Some traces of these qualities exist even in them, though properly all of them, whether good or bad, belong to the human breast alone.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XX: On practicing what you preach

Would you not think him an utter fool who wept because he was not alive a thousand years ago? And is he not just as much of a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is all the same; you will not be, and you were not. Neither of these periods of time belongs to you.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life

... the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary’s charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears

But the wise man knows that all things are in store for him. Whatever happens, he says: “I knew it.”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVI: On Learning Wisdom in Old Age

There is no reason why poverty should call us away from philosophy—no, nor even actual want. For when hastening after wisdom, we must endure even hunger. Men have endured hunger when their towns were besieged, and what other reward for their endurance did they obtain than that they did not fall under the conqueror’s power? How much greater is the promise of the prize of everlasting liberty, and the assurance that we need fear neither God nor man! Even though we starve, we must reach that goal.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XVII: On Philosophy and Riches

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

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter IV: On the terrors of death

To infer the nature of this Supreme Good, one does not need many words or any round-about discussion; it should be pointed out with the forefinger, so to speak, and not be dissipated into many parts. For what good is there in breaking it up into tiny bits, when you can say: the Supreme Good is that which is honourable? Besides (and you may be still more surprised at this), that which is honourable is the only good; all other goods are alloyed and debased. If you once convince yourself of this, and if you come to love virtue devotedly (for mere loving is not enough), anything that has been touched by virtue will be fraught with blessing and prosperity for you, no matter how it shall be regarded by others. Torture, if only, as you lie suffering, you are more calm in mind than your very torturer; illness, if only you curse not Fortune and yield not to the disease—in short, all those things which others regard as ills will become manageable and will end in good, if you succeed in rising above them.

Seneca

Epistles, Volume II, Letter 71

The much occupied man has no time for wantonness, and it is an obvious commonplace that the evils of leisure can be shaken off by hard work.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LVI: On quiet and study

There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Seneca

Seneca, Moral letters to Lucilius, letter 13 – On groundless fears.

My master Attalus used to say: "Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison." The poison which serpents carry for the destruction of others, and secrete without harm to themselves, is not like this poison; for this sort is ruinous to the possessor.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXXI: On benefits

“You will have less money.” Yes, and less trouble. “Less influence.” Yes, and less envy.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLII: On Values

I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then? Am I free from bonds now? Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me! “I shall die,” you say; you mean to say “I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death.”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXV: On Reformation

But the wise man is fortified against all inroads; he is alert; he will not retreat before the attack of poverty, or of sorrow, or of disgrace, or of pain. He will walk undaunted both against them and among them.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LIX: On Pleasure and Joy

I do not know whether I shall make progress; but I should prefer to lack success rather than to lack faith.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXV: On Reformation

What is more affectionate to others than man? Yet what is more savage against them than anger?

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

“He is a slave.” His soul, however, may be that of a freeman. “He is a slave.” But shall that stand in his way? Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLVII: On master and slave

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVI: On Learning Wisdom in Old Age

Clothe yourself with a hero’s courage, and withdraw for a little space from the opinions of the common man. Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur; this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and blood.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXIX: On Noble Aspirations

No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances—in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

And what is freedom, you ask? It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LI: On Baiae and Morals

So the wise man will develop virtue, if he may, in the midst of wealth, or, if not, in poverty; if possible, in his own country—if not, in exile; if possible, as a commander—if not, as a common soldier; if possible, in sound health—if not, enfeebled. Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life’s length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little. Say to me when I lie down to sleep: “You may not wake again!” And when I have waked: “You may not go to sleep again!” Say to me when I go forth from my house: “You may not return!” And when I return: “You may never go forth again!”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLIX: On the Shortness of Life

I forbid you to be cast down or depressed. It is not enough if you do not shrink from work; ask for it.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXXI: On Siren Songs

We must admit, however, that neither wild beasts nor any other creature except man is subject to anger: for, whilst anger is the foe of reason, it nevertheless does not arise in any place where reason cannot dwell. Wild beasts have impulses, fury, cruelty, combativeness: they have not anger any more than they have luxury: yet they indulge in some pleasures with less self-control than human beings.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

Our luxuries have condemned us to weakness; we have ceased to be able to do that which we have long declined to do.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LV: On Vatia’s Villa

Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 1 – On Saving Time

“I should prefer that Fortune keep me in her camp rather than in the lap of luxury. If I am tortured, but bear it bravely, all is well; if I die, but die bravely, it is also well.”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

Why then do you occupy me with the words rather than with the works of wisdom? Make me braver, make me calmer, make me the equal of Fortune, make me her superior.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CXVI: On Real Ethics as Superior to Syllogistic Subtleties

Tell me what to avoid, what to seek, by what studies to strengthen my tottering mind, how I may rebuff the waves that strike me abeam and drive me from my course, by what means I may be able to cope with all my evils, and by what means I can be rid of the calamities that have plunged in upon me and those into which I myself have plunged. Teach me how to bear the burden of sorrow without a groan on my part, and how to bear prosperity without making others groan; also, how to avoid waiting for the ultimate and inevitable end, and to beat a retreat of my own free will, when it seems proper to me to do so.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CXVI: On Real Ethics as Superior to Syllogistic Subtleties

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

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXI: On the supreme good

What madness this is, to punish oneself because one is unfortunate, and not to lessen, but to increase one’s ills! You ought to display, in this matter also, that decent behaviour and modesty which has characterised all your life: for there is such a thing as self-restraint in grief also.

Seneca

To Marcia on Consolation

“It is nothing—a trifling matter at most; keep a stout heart and it will soon cease”; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

Is it for this purpose that we are strong—that we may have light burdens to bear?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for the mind.

Seneca

De Vita Beata (On the Happy Life): cap. 2

I cannot help believing that Mucius was all the more lucky because he manipulated the flames as calmly as if he were holding out his hand to the manipulator. He had wiped out all his previous mistakes; he finished the war unarmed and maimed; and with that stump of a hand he conquered two kings.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

It makes a big difference whether you give something back or pay it off...
The framers of the laws instituted festivals, in order that men should be publicly compelled to gaiety, as a necessary temperance for labors. We remember the great orator Pollio Asinius, who was not detained by anything beyond the tenth hour: he did not even need letters for an hour after that, so that no new concern arose, but he put the fatigue of the whole day in those two hours. Some joined in the middle of the day and put off some lighter work in the afternoon hours. Our elders also forbade a new report to be made in the senate after ten o'clock. The army divided the vigils, and the night was safe from the return of the expedition.

Seneca

Dialogi de Tranquillitate Animi

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLVII: On master and slave

Alexander, king of Macedon, began to study geometry; unhappy man, because he would thereby learn how puny was that earth of which he had seized but a fraction! Unhappy man, I repeat, because he was bound to understand that he was bearing a false title. For who can be “great” in that which is puny?

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCI: On the Lesson to be Drawn From the Burning of Lyons

This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured.

Seneca

De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 33

See the foundations of the most celebrated cities hardly now to be discerned; they were ruined by anger. See deserts extending for many miles without an inhabitant: they have been desolated by anger.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

Who, then, can be more ignorant of nature than he who classes this cruel and hurtful vice as belonging to her best and most polished work?

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

But how foolish it is to set out one’s life, when one is not even owner of the morrow!

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CI: On the Futility of Planning Ahead

The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CI: On the Futility of Planning Ahead

Socrates is reported to have replied, when a certain person complained of having received no benefit from his travels: “It serves you right! You travelled in your own company!”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CI: On the Futility of Planning Ahead

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter II: On discursiveness in reading

Much must also be withdrawn into oneself: for a well-composed conversation of differences disturbs and renews the affections, and infuriates whatever is weak in the mind and has not been cared for...
Loneliness will cure the hatred of the crowd, the boredom of solitude will be cured by the crowd.
... A certain dullness and languor of the mind is born from constant toil.
... Nor would the desire of men so much tend to this, unless play and fun had a kind of natural voluptuousness. The frequent use of which will relieve all the weight of the soul and all the vigor.
For sleep is also necessary for refreshment, but if you continue it day and night, death will result.

Seneca

Dialogi de Tranquillitate Animi

The shortest way to wealth is through the contempt of wealth.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXII

If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough.

Seneca

De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life), Ch. 1

Let us now enquire whether anger be in accordance with nature, and whether it be useful and worth entertaining in some measure.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Some of the wisest of men have in consequence of this called anger a short madness: for it is equally devoid of self control, regardless of decorum, forgetful of kinship, obstinately engrossed in whatever it begins to do, deaf to reason and advice, excited by trifling causes, awkward at perceiving what is true and just, and very like a falling rock which breaks itself to pieces upon the very thing which it crushes.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

That you may know that they whom anger possesses are not sane, look at their appearance; for as there are distinct symptoms which mark madmen, such as a bold and menacing air, a gloomy brow, a stern face.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

Everything of this sort is not anger, but the semblance of anger, like that of boys who want to beat the ground when they have fallen upon it, and who often do not even know why they are angry, but are merely angry without any reason or having received any injury, yet not without some semblance of injury received, or without some wish to exact a penalty for it.

Seneca

On Anger to Novatus

If you see a man who is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires, happy in adversity, peaceful amid the storm, who looks down upon men from a higher plane, and views the gods on a footing of equality, will not a feeling of reverence for him steal over you, will you not say: “This quality is too great and too lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it dwells? A divine power has descended upon that man.”

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLI: On the god within us

That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XCII: On the Happy Life

This spirit thrusts itself forward, confident of commendation and esteem. It is superior to all, monarch of all it surveys; hence it should be subservient to nothing, finding no task too heavy, and nothing strong enough to weigh down the shoulders of a man.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

You see that man can endure toil: Cato, on foot, led an army through African deserts. You see that thirst can be endured: he marched over sun-baked hills, dragging the remains of a beaten army and with no train of supplies, undergoing lack of water and wearing a heavy suit of armour; always the last to drink of the few springs which they chanced to find. You see that honour, and dishonour too, can be despised: for they report that on the very day when Cato was defeated at the elections, he played a game of ball. You see also that man can be free from fear of those above him in rank: for Cato attacked Caesar and Pompey simultaneously, at a time when none dared fall foul of the one without endeavouring to oblige the other. You see that death can be scorned as well as exile: Cato inflicted exile upon himself and finally death, and war all the while.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Do you desire another case? Take that of the younger Marcus Cato, with whom Fortune dealt in a more hostile and more persistent fashion. But he withstood her, on all occasions, and in his last moments, at the point of death, showed that a brave man can live in spite of Fortune, can die in spite of her. His whole life was passed either in civil warfare, or under a political regime which was soon to breed civil war.

Seneca

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

Now think of the things which goad man into destroying man: they are hope, envy, hatred, fear and contempt.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 104

And no one has power over us when death is within our own power.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 104

Others have been plundered, indiscriminately, set upon, betrayed, beaten up, attacked with poison or with calumny - mention anything you like, it has happened to plenty of people.

Seneca

Letters to Lucilius, 107