Lucius Annaeus Seneca Love Quotes and Sayings
2. Love in its essence is spiritual fire.
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Excerpt from Wikipedia: Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca; ca. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. While he was later forced to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors, he may have been innocent. His father was Seneca the Elder and his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus.
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Sayings by Lucius Annaeus Seneca
1. 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 satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
2. He who is brave is free.
3. Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
4. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
5. One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
6. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
7. The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
8. To the stars through difficulties.
9. All cruelty springs from weakness.
10. As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
11. A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
12. Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
13. Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
14. Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
15. It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
16. There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.
17. No man was ever wise by chance.
18. Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
19. If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
20. Life is like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.
21. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
22. Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.
23. Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.
24. Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
25. Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.
26. For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast – a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?
A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.
27. He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.
28. Gold is tried by fire, brave men by adversity.
29. We learn not in the school, but in life.
30. To err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical.
31. Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
32. True happiness is … to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
33. It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.
34. It is difficult to bring people to goodness with lessons, but it is easy to do so by example.
35. What is harder than rock? What is softer than water? Yet hard rocks are hollowed out by soft water?
36. Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
37. It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
38. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
39. Throw aside all hindrances and give up your time to attaining a sound mind.
40. There is no genius without a touch of madness.
41. While we teach, we learn.
42. There’s one blessing only, the source and cornerstone of beatitude – confidence in self.
43. The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.
44. We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.
45. 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.
46. Life, if well lived, is long enough.