Quotations by:
Seneca the Younger
Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Hercules Furens, Part 1, l.255 [Amphitryon] [tr. Miller (1917)]
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Alt. trans.: "Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue."
A Physician is not angry at the Intemperance of a mad Patient; nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a Man in a Fever: Just so should a wise Man treat all Mankind, as a Physician does his Patient; and looking upon them only as sick, and extravagant.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “Of Anger [De ira]“
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There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.
Good men should not shrink from hardships and difficulties, nor complain against fate; they should take in good part whatever happens and should turn it to good. Not what you endure, but how you endure, is important.
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
It is dangerous for a man too suddenly, or too easily, to believe himself. Wherefore let us examine, watch, observe, and inspect our own hearts; for we are ourselves our own greatest flatterers: we should every night call ourselves to account, “What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired?” Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought every day to the shrift.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On the Happy Life” [De Vita Beata]” [tr. L’Estrange (1834)]
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Sometimes incorrectly quoted as "Our vices will abort of themselves ...."
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.
[Nam sive Graeco poetae credimus ‘aliquando et insanire iucundum est,’ sive Platoni ‘frustra poeticas fores compos sui pepulit,’ sive Aristoteli ‘nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit’: non potest grande aliquid et super ceteros loqui nisi mota mens. Cum vulgaria et solita contempsit instinctuque sacro surrexit excelsior, tunc demum aliquid cecinit grandius ore mortali. Non potest sublime quicquam et in arduo positum contingere, quam diu apud se est; desciscat oportet a solito et efferatur et mordeat frenos et rectorem rapiat suum eoque ferat, quo per se timuisset escendere.]
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On Tranquility of Mind [De Tranquillitate Animi],” 17.10 [tr. Langsdorf (1900)]
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I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On Tranquility of Mind [De Tranquillitate Animi]“
Alt trans. by W.B. Langsdorf (1900): "Should I be surprised that dangers which have always surrounded me should at last attack me? A great part of mankind, when about to sail, do not think of a storm. I shall never be ashamed of a reporter of bad news in a good cause."
The wise man does not deem himself undeserving of any of the gifts of Fortune. He does not love riches, but he would rather have them; he does not admit them to his heart, but to his house, and he does not reject the riches he has, but he keeps them and wishes them to supply ampler material for exercising his virtue.
The willing, Destiny guides them; the unwilling, Destiny drags them.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], “On Obedience to the Universal Will”
The poor one is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more.
[Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.]
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 2 “On Discursiveness in Reading,” sec. 6
Alt trans. (Gummere (1918)): "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], Letter 52 “On choosing our teachers,” Sec. 12
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Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
Therefore, two bad habits must be forbidden, both the fear of the future and the memory of by-gone trouble; the latter no longer belongs to me, the former, not yet.
Just as the mother’s womb holds us for ten months not in preparation for itself but for the region to which we seem to be discharged when we are capable of drawing breath and surviving in the open, so in the span extending from infancy to old age we are ripening for another birth. Another beginning awaits us, another status. We cannot yet bear heaven’s light except at intervals; look unfalteringly, then, to that decisive hour which is the body’s last but not the soul’s.
All that lies about you look upon as the luggage in a posting station; you must push on. At your departure Nature strips you as bare as at your entry. You cannot carry out more than you brought in; indeed, you must lay down a good part of what you brought into life. The envelope of skin, which is your last covering, will be stripped off; the flesh and the blood which is diffused and courses through the whole of it will be stripped off; the bones and sinews which are the structural support of the shapeless and precarious mass will be stripped off.
That day which you dread as the end is your birth into eternity.
I give this advice to you, do not be miserable before the time, since those troubles which you have feared as if already overhanging, perhaps will never come, certainly have not yet come.
Whatever is well said by another, is mine.
Nothing shall seem to me so truly my possessions as the gifts I have wisely bestowed.
It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one.
[Utrumque enim vitium est et omnibus credere et nulli.]
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 3 “On True and False Friendship” [tr. Gummere]
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Alt. trans.: "For it is both a vice to believe everyone and no-one."
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.
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. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you.
Whatever the quality of my works may be, read them as if I were still seeking, and were not aware of, the truth, and were seeking it obstinately, too.
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 71, sec. 3 “On the Supreme Good” [tr. Grummere (1918)]
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Alt trans.: "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
Life’s like a play; it’s not the length but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 77
Alt trans. by R. Gummere: "It is with life as it is with a play, - it matters not how long the action is spun out, but how good the acting is." Full text.
He is most powerful who has power over himself.
The rule is, we are to Give as we would Receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without Hesitation; for there’s no Grace in a Benefit that sticks to the fingers.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Morals, Part 1 “Of Benefits,” ch. 7 “The Manner of Obliging” [tr. L’Estrange (1693)]
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To make another person hold his tongue, be you first silent.
[Alium silere quod voles, primus sile.]
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Phaedra [Hippolytus], l. 867 (c. AD 50)
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Sometimes given as "Alium silere quod valeas, primus sile." Alt. trans.: "Where thou wouldst have another silence keep, keep silence first thyself." [tr. F Miller (1907)]
It is a sad fate for a man to die
Too well known to everybody else,
And still unknown to himself.[Illi mors gravis incubate
Qui notus nimis omnibus
Ignotus moritur sibi.]
Man is a reasoning animal. Therefore, man’s highest good is attained if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth. And what is it which this reason demands of him? The easiest thing in the world — to live in accordance with his nature. But this has turned into a hard task by the general madness of mankind; we push one
another into vice.Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Letters to Lucilius, Letter 41 (c. 65 AD)
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