Quotes by Seneca

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

As Lucretius says: Thus ever from himself doth each man flee. But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves

Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.

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

And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles, he has not lived long – he has existed long. For what if you should think that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbour, and, swept hither and thither by a succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing about.

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and--what will perhaps make you wonder more--it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

The willing, Destiny guides them. The unwilling, Destiny drags them.

Life is divided into three parts: what was, what is and what shall be. Of these three periods, the present is short, the future is doubtful and the past alone is certain.

Words need to be sown like seeds. No matter how tiny a seed may be, when in lands in the right sort of ground it unfolds its strength and from being minute expands and grows to a massive size.

It takes all of our life to learn how to live, and – something that may surprise you more – it takes just as long to learn how to die.

How silly then to imagine that the human mind, which is formed of the same elements as divine beings, objects to movement and change of abode, while the divine nature finds delight and even self-preservation in continual and very rapid change.

Love sometimes injures. Friendship always benefits, After friendship is formed you must trust, but before that you must judge.

Love sometimes injures. Friendship always benefits

Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.

Sorrowers tend to avoid what they are most fond of and try to give vent to their grief.

What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

Ive come across people who say that there is a sort of inborn restlessness in the human spirit and an urge to change ones abode; for man is endowed with a mind which is changeable and and unsettled: nowhere at rest, it darts about and directs its thoughts to all places known and unknown, a wanderer which cannot endure repose and delights chiefly in novelty.

If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

All this hurrying from place to place won’t bring you any relief, for you’re traveling in the company of your own emotions, followed by your troubles all the way.