Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms
- c. 4 BC – AD 65
- Roman
- Philosopher, Statesman, Dramatist, Stoic Thinker, Advisor to Emperor Nero
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger was a Roman Stoic philosopher, playwright, and statesman who lived during the 1st century CE and served as an advisor to Emperor Nero. Known for his moral essays, letters, and tragedies, Seneca emphasized rational control over emotions, virtue, and the importance of inner peace amid external chaos—core tenets of Stoic philosophy. Works like Letters to Lucilius and On the Shortness of Life continue to influence discussions on ethics, self-discipline, and the nature of time. Though admired for his eloquence and wisdom, he has been criticized for the contradiction between his teachings and his involvement in imperial politics. Forced to commit suicide in 65 CE, Seneca remains a powerful voice in the philosophy of resilience, moderation, and moral reflection.
- “Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.”
- “Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.”
- “No one is laughable who laughs at himself.”
- “The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.”
- “No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.”
- “Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.”
- “Whatever is well said by another, is mine.”
- “Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.”
- “The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man… It is more powerful than external circumstances.”
- “It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.”
- “There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.”
- “No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.”
- “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
- “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
- “Do everything as in the eye of another.”
- “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
- “Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.”
- “He has committed the crime who profits by it.”
- “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.”
- “The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.”
- “It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.”
- “A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.”
- “Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.”
- “When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.”
- “A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.”
- “No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.”
- “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”
- “All art is but imitation of nature.”
- “One crime has to be concealed by another.”
- “Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.”
- “Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.”
- “A great mind becomes a great fortune.”
- “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
- “It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.”
- “Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.”
- “The wish for healing has always been half of health.”
- “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 fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.”
- “Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?”
- “Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.”
- “All cruelty springs from weakness.”
- “Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.”
- “A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.”
- “If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.”
- “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.”
- “A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.”
- “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
- “The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.”
- “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
- “It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.”
- “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.”
- “Time discovers truth.”
- “Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.”
- “A great fortune is a great slavery.”
- “Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”
- “What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.”
- “When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.”
- “Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.”
- “Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.”
- “A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.”
- “Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.”
- “A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.”
- “Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.”
- “He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.”
- “Every sin is the result of a collaboration.”
- “The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.”
- “I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?”
- “It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.”
- “May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.”
- “Love in its essence is spiritual fire.”
- “Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.”
- “We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.”
- “The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.”
- “There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.”
- “Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.”
- “Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.”
- “Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”
- “Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.”
- “Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.”
- “Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”
- “What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.”
- “He that does good to another does good also to himself.”
- “A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.”
- “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
- “Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.”
- “Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.”
- “True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”
- “True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.”
- “Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.”
- “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
- “The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.”
- “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 abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.”
- “Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.”
- “The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.”
- “There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.”
- “There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.”
- “In war there is no prize for runner-up.”
- “In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.”
- “For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”
- “Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.”
- “The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”
- “For greed all nature is too little.”
- “A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.”
- “Modesty forbids what the law does not.”
- “Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.”
- “Where fear is, happiness is not.”
- “He who has great power should use it lightly.”
- “We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.”
- “Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.”
- “There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”
- “What is true belongs to me!”
- “Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.”
- “He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.”
- “The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.”
- “While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
- “It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.”
- “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”
- “To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.”
- “If you judge, investigate.”
- “When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.”
- “See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.”
- “If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.”
- “You learn to know a pilot in a storm.”
- “Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.”
- “Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.”
- “There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.”
- “A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.”
- “God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is.”
- “Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.”
- “It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.”
- “Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.”
- “I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.”
- “I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.”
- “He who is brave is free.”
- “A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.”
- “So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.”
- “Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.”
- “One must steer, not talk.”
- “It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.”
- “You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.”
- “Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.”
- “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.”
- “We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.”
- “Life, if well lived, is long enough.”
- “The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.”
- “No man was ever wise by chance.”
- “That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.”
- “A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.”
- “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
- “The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.”
- “No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.”
- “Every reign must submit to a greater reign.”
- “The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.”
- “Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.”
- “Every guilty person is his own hangman.”
- “The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.”
- “A person’s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.”
- “The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.”
- “He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.”
- “It is quality rather than quantity that matters.”
- “If you wished to be loved, love.”
- “To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.”
- “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”
- “Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.”
- “That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.”
- “Life is warfare.”
- “Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.”
- “Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.”
- “Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.”
- “Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.”
- “The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.”
- “We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.”
- “The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.”
- “There is no delight in owning anything unshared.”