Top 25 Quotes by Seneca the Younger of 1124 - Page 20

It is a world of mischief that may be done by a single example of avarice or luxury. One voluptuous palate makes many more.

It is a world of mischief that may be done by a single example of avarice or luxury. One voluptuous palate makes many more.

Seneca the Younger

Luxury, Example, Done

In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul.

Seneca the Younger

Time, Lying, Philosophy

We are wrong in looking forward to death: in great measure it's past already.

Seneca the Younger

Past, Life And Death, Looking Forward

One who's our friend is fond of us; one who's fond of us isn't necessarily our friend.

Seneca the Younger

Friendship, Friends

...nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

Seneca the Younger

Men, Bravery, Admirable

If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.

Seneca the Younger

Happiness, Men, Soul

A great step toward independence is a good-humoured stomach.

Seneca the Younger

Food, History, Independence

It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions; beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business.

Seneca the Younger

Wise, Men, Long

Elegance is not an ornament worthy of man.

Seneca the Younger

Men, Ornaments, Elegance

There are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.

Seneca the Younger

Wisdom, Men, Slavery

I will have a care of being a slave to myself, for it is a perpetual, a shameful, and the heaviest of all servitudes; and this may be done by moderate desires.

Seneca the Younger

Desire, Done, Care

I persist on praising not the life I lead, but that which I ought to lead. I follow it at a mighty distance, crawling

Seneca the Younger

Life, Distance, Inspire

The book-keeping of benefits is simple: it is all expenditure; if any one returns it, that is clear gain; if he does not return it, it is not lost, I gave it for the sake of giving.

Seneca the Younger

Book, Simple, Giving

Anyone can stop a man's life, but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.

Seneca the Younger

Men, Doors, Life And Death

'Phoenissae' l. 152

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

Seneca the Younger

Inspirational, Life, Death

As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.

Seneca the Younger

Love, Life, Time

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?

Seneca the Younger

War, Mad, Justice

"Moral Letters to Lucilius (Letter XCV)". Book by Seneca the Younger, 1925.

The things which we hold in our hands, which we see with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is a good deed, which no violence can undo.

Seneca the Younger

Kindness, Taken, Mean

Let him who has granted a favour speak not of it; let him who has received one, proclaim it.

Seneca the Younger

Favour, Speak, Granted

Freedom is 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 the Younger

Freedom, Mean, Lists

It is one thing to remember, another to know. To remember is to safeguard something entrusted to the memory. But to know is to make each thing one's own, not depend on the text and always to look back to the teacher. "Zeno said this, Cleanthes said this." Let there be space between you and the book.

Seneca the Younger

Teacher, Memories, Book

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.

Seneca the Younger

Wise, Ignorance, Men

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