Quotes by Seneca

For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.

What mancan you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he isdying daily? 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 deaths hands.

When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place, and the awful gloom of this doomed cavern then strike you with the presence of a deity?

If anyone says that the best life of all is to sail the sea, and then adds that I must not sail upon a sea where shipwrecks are a common occurrence and there are often sudden storms that sweep the helmsman in an adverse direction, I conclude that this man, although he lauds navigation, really forbids me to launch my ship.

The part of life we really live is small. For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

Its not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.

Leisure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.

distringit librorum multitudo (the abundance of books is distraction)

f you wish to put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen is certainly going to happen.

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with

Because thou writest me often, I thank thee ... Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.

How closely flattery resembles friendship! It not only apes friendship, but outdoes it, passing it in the race; with wide-open and indulgent ears it is welcomed and sinks to the depths of the heart, and it is pleasing precisely wherein it does harm.

He who is brave is free

But is life really worth so much? Let us examine this; its a different inquiry. We will offer no solace for so desolate a prison house; we will encourage no one to endure the overlordship of butchers. We shall rather show that in every kind of slavery, the road of freedom lies open. I will say to the man to whom it befell to have a king shoot arrows at his dear ones [Prexaspes], and to him whose master makes fathers banquet on their sons guts [Harpagus]: What are you groaning for, fool?... Everywhere you look you find an end to your sufferings. You see that steep drop-off? It leads down to freedom. You see that ocean, that river, that well? Freedom lies at its bottom. You see that short, shriveled, bare tree? Freedom hangs from it.... You ask, what is the path to freedom? Any vein in your body.

Its easier to get philosophers to agree than clocks.

A woman is not beautiful when her ankle or arm wins compliments, but when her total appearance diverts admiration from the individual parts of her body.

The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

…because it is natural to touch more often the parts that hurt.

Fidelity purchased with money, money can destroy.