10 Great Seneca the Younger Quotes - Part 4

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What is harder than rock? What is softer than water? Yet hard rocks are hollowed out by soft water?

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

As far as I am concerned, I know that I have lost not wealth but distractions. The body’s needs are few: it wants to be free from cold, to banish hunger and thirst with nourishment; if we long for anything more we are exerting ourselves to serve our vices, not our needs.

Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs.

What really ruins our character is the fact that none of us looks back over his life.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.

Men do not care how nobly they live, but only for how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.


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10 Great Seneca the Younger Quotes - Part 3

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It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do so by example.

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.

The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.

But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.

True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man; to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence on the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient.

Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.

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

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

The best ideas are common property.

It is quality rather than quantity that matters.


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10 Great Seneca the Younger Quotes - Part 2

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A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

We should every night call ourselves to an account; 
What infirmity have I mastered today? 
What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.

Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.

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.

There is no genius without a touch of madness.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.


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10 Great Seneca the Younger Quotes - Part 1

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It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

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

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

Associate with people who are likely to improve you.

No man was ever wise by chance.

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.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

Life is like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.

Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool. 

Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.

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Seneca the Younger

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Seneca the Younger was a Roman philosopher, dramatist, and statesman.  His full name was Lucius Annaeus Seneca.  He was born 4 BC in Cordoba, Spain and died April 15, 65 AD in Rome, Italy.

Quotes of Seneca

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.  

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject... And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them... Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.


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10 Great Heraclitus Quotes - Part 4

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The sun is new every day.

It is better to conceal ignorance.

Because it is so unbelievable, the truth often escapes being known.

The river 
where you set 
your foot just now 
is gone 
those waters― 
hiving way to this, 
now this.

The way upward and the way downward are the same.

Give me one man 
from among ten thousands, 
if he be the best.

One man is worth thousand if he is extraordinary.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

It is necessary to take what is common as our guide; however, though this logic is universal, the many live as if each individual has his own private wisdom.

Everything flows and nothing stays.


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10 Great Heraclitus Quotes - Part 3

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Stupidity is better 
kept a secret 
than displayed.

We must realize that war is universal and strife is justice, and that all things come into the world and pass away through strife.

Time is a child playing a game of draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child.

We must therefore be guided by what is common to all. The Logos is common to all, yet the multitude lives as if each had his own intelligence.

War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free.

It is necessary to understand that war is common, strife is customary, and all things happen because of strife and necessity.

Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse.

Dogs bark at what they don't understand.

You will not discover the limits of the soul 
by traveling, even if you wander over every 
conceivable path, so deep is its story.

What opposes unites, and the finest attunement stems from things bearing in opposite directions, and all things come about by strife.


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