Quotes About Seneca

There seems to be a 1600 year gap in pole shift references after Seneca, because as Christianity spread, the Church formed and covered up evidence of anything that did not support their biblical narrative.

think the Princess should read the New Testament both night and morning, and also certain selected portions of the Old Testament. She must become fully conversant with the gospels. She should, I believe also study Plutarch's Enchiridion, Seneca's Maxims, and of course Plato and Cicero." He glanced at his friend. "I suggest that Sir Thomas More's Utopia would provide good reading.

It was about this time I began to seriously try to write. I commenced a tragedy which I called "Seneca." I do not remember anything about the work, except that it was laid in ancient Rome, and that Seneca was a philosopher and a senator. I showed the first act to Father, and he gave it back to me with a smile, and the opinion that "it might have been worse."

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns.

For this indiscretion Seneca relegates the emperor (Claudius) to a Sisyphean gamester's hell: condemned eternally to pick up the bones and thow them into a dice cup that has no bottom.

Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.

philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and some of the work of Seneca.

a full-blooded Seneca Iroquois sachem, Ely S. Parker, who grew up on an Indian reservation in upstate New York and was a chief of the Six Nations. Trained as a civil engineer, he was a man of giant girth with jet-black hair, penetrating eyes, and exceptional strength who styled himself a "savage Jack Falstaff of 200 [pound] weight.

It is extreme evil to depart from the company of the living before you die.

Seneca (see Aug., CG, 6, 10) deplored this blood-soaked obscenity: One amputates his manhood, another slashes his arms. Can one fear the gods when one seeks their favour in this manner?

Repose without stagnation is the state most favorable to happiness. "The great felicity of life," says Seneca, "is to be without perturbations.

Could we react as Seneca tried to do? 'I force my mind to pay attention to itself and not to be distracted by anything external. It does not matter what is making a noise outside, so long as there is no turmoil inside – as long as there is no wrangling between desire and fear, as long as greed is not at odds with self-indulgence, one carping at the other. … Only as the mind develops into excellence do we achieve any real tranquillity.

The problem with rules, says Seneca, is that 'if we give precepts for specific situations, the task will be endless'. Instead, we should be guided by philosophical principles, which are 'concise and comprehensive'.

According to Seneca: 'Turning pale, shedding tears, the first stirrings of sexual arousal, a deep sigh, a suddenly sharpened glance, anything along these lines: whoever reckons them a clear token of passion and a sign of the mind's engagement is just mistaken and fails to understand that they're involuntary bodily movements.

And Seneca says, 'Whosoever would have wisdom shall disdain no man, but he shall gladly teach what he knows, without presumption or pride, and of such things as he does not know, he shall not be ashamed to learn them, and shall inquire of lesser folk than himself.

For, as Seneca said, 'Loss of chattels may recovered be, but time, once lost, we shall never see.' It will not come again, without doubt, no more than will Molly's maidenhead, when she has lost it because of her wantonness. Let us not grow mouldy thus in idleness.

Things that have been foolishly done, in the hope of favorable Fortune, will never come to a good end.' And, as the same Seneca says, 'The more clear and the more shining that Fortune is, the more brittle and the sooner broken is she.

For Seneca says, 'That man who is nourished by Fortune, she makes of him a great fool.

According to Seneca, Apicius committed suicide because, having spent one tenth of a considerable fortune on his kitchen, he realized that he could not long continue in the style he had chosen.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. - Aristotle (Attributed by Seneca in Moral Essays, De Tranquillitate Animi On Tranquility of Mind, sct. 17, subsct. 10.)

Is this because I think suicide can be justifiable? Plato thought so. Seneca thought so. But what do I think? Why do I think you did it? Because you were trapped upside down in a tankful of water. Because you were weak and in pain. Because you were tired of fighting.

They credited only their own prejudices, whence the accusation of "misanthropy," a crime imputed to them by Cicero, Seneca, Celsius, and, with them, all antiquity.

The idea of a book that can make a change to your life, that can affect your perspective, is a beautiful and great ambition: one that Seneca, Nietzsche and Tolstoy would have sympathised with.

Seneca[1] rightly remarks, ut quisque contemtissimus et ludibrio est, ita solutissimae est, the more contemptible and ridiculous a man is,-the readier he is with his tongue.