Quotes from Seneca the Younger

For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold.

Let no man give advice to others that he has not first given himself.

Those vices [luxury and neglect of decent manners] are vices of men, not of the times. [Lat., Hominum sunt ista [vitia], non temporum.

Whenever you hold a fellow creature in distress, remember that he is a man.

Leisure without study is death, and the grave of a living man.

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

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

In every good man a God doth dwell.

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.

It is safer to offend certain men than it is to oblige them; for as proof that they owe nothing they seek recourse in hatred.

Do you desire not to be angry? Be not inquisitive. He who inquires what is said of him only works out his own misery.

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.

Lay hold of today's task, and you will not depend so much upon tomorrow's.

The mind should be allowed some relaxation, that it may return to its work all the better for the rest.

No work is of such merit as to instruct from a mere cursory perusal.

He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.

The best cure for anger is delay.

Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.

Nature does not turn out her work according to a single pattern; she prides herself upon her power of variation.

The anger of those in authority is always weighty.

Anger is like a ruin, which, in falling upon its victim, breaks itself to pieces.

To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.

Teach the art of living well.

There exists no more difficult art than living.