Seneca quotes - page 11

Pyrrhus: No law demands mercy to prisoners Agamemnon: Though the law forbids it not, yet decency forbids it. Pyr: The victor is at liberty to do whatever he likes. Agam.: To whom much is allowed, it is least suitable to act wantonly. (Seneca)
Unjust rule never abides continually. View quote
Seneca
Who profits by a sin has done the sin. View quote
Seneca
For love of bustle is not industry – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind. View quote
Seneca
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. View quote
Seneca
A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy. View quote
Seneca
What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things. View quote
Seneca
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. View quote
Seneca
Besides, he who follows another not only discovers nothing but is not even investigating. View quote
Seneca
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. View quote
Seneca
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)
For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live. View quote
Seneca
If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope. View quote
Seneca
Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture room. View quote
Seneca
No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled. View quote
Seneca
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. View quote
Seneca
This is the worst trait of minds rendered arrogant by prosperity, they hate those whom they have injured. View quote
Seneca
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. View quote
Seneca
It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough. View quote
Seneca
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. View quote
Seneca
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)
I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives. View quote
Seneca
If you live according to nature, you never will be poor; if according to the world's caprice, you will never be rich. View quote
Seneca
Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart. View quote
Seneca
In war there is no prize for runner-up. View quote
Seneca