Seneca the Elder Quotes

34 quotes in 359 categories

• We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
• When in fear, it is safest to force the attack.
• A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
• Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.
• The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.
• It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and prefer things in measure to things in excess.
• No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
• All art is an imitation of nature.
• There's some end at last for the man who follows a path; mere rambling is interminable.
• There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
• Failure changes for the better, success for the worse.
• Malice drinks one-half of its own poison.
• 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…
• No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.
• I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
• If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him.
• The sun also shines on the wicked.
• The road to learning by precept is long, but by example short and effective.
• To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.
• The conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil awhile, endure awhile, believe always, and never turn back

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