It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
All art is an imitation of nature.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
An unpopular rule is never long maintained.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
As was his language so was his life.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Be not too hasty either with praise or blame; speak always as though you were giving evidence before the judgement-seat of the Gods.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Delay not; swift the flight of fortune's greatest favours.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
He who spares the wicked injures the good.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
He will live ill who does not know how to die well.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
If virtue precede us every step will be safe.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is a youthful failing to be unable to control one's impulses.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is pleasant at times to play the madman.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is rash to condemn where you are ignorant.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Life without the courage for death is slavery.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Many things have fallen only to rise higher.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
No one can wear a mask for very long.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Not to feel one's misfortunes is not human, not to bear them in not manly.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
One hand washes the other. (Manus Manum Lavet)
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Speech is the mirror of the mind. (Imago Animi Sermo Est)
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The arts are the servant; wisdom its master.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The mind is slow to unlearn what it learnt early.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The path of precept is long, that of example short and effectual.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Unjust dominion cannot be eternal.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What does reason demand of a man? A very easy thing--to live in accord with his nature.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Without an adversary prowess shrivels. We see how great and efficient it really is only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is better, of cours, to know useless things than to know nothing.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The best ideas are common property.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Why do I not seek some real good one which I could feel, not one which I could display?
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Where fear is, happiness is not.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
We are more often frightened than hurt and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Time discovers truth.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The wish for healing has always been half of health.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The good things of prosperity are to be wished but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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.
