Lūcius Annaeus Seneca, called Seneca the Younger (c.4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian. As Rome’s foremost intellectual figure in the mid-1st century CE, and as “prime minister,” Seneca was the virtual ruler of the Roman Empire 54–62 CE, during the initial chapter of the Emperor Nero’s reign.
Born to a provincial equestrian family in Corduba, now Cordoba, Spain, Seneca was the son of rhetorician Marcus Annaeus Seneca, called Seneca the Elder.
Seneca the Younger began a career in politics and law in Rome in 31 CE. However, he was banished to Corsica (41–49 CE) by Emperor Claudius on an accusation of adultery with Claudius’s niece Julia Livilla, and there Seneca wrote the three treatises, Consolation.
Recalled to Rome in 49 CE through the influence of Empress Agrippina the Younger, Seneca became the tutor to her son, the future Emperor Nero. Seneca enjoyed substantial political influence for a while and was made consul by Nero in 57 CE, but he later withdrew from public life and devoted himself to writing and philosophy. In 65 CE, Seneca was implicated in the conspiracy of Pisa to kill Nero and ordered to commit suicide.
Seneca’s writings include Epistulae morales ad Lucilium (64 CE,) a collection of 124 letters dealing with moral issues written to Lucilius Junior, and Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii (64 CE; ‘The Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius,’) a scathing satire.
Seneca’s extant works comprise ten ethical treatises: On Providence (64 CE,) On the Constancy of the Wise Man (55 CE,) On Anger (in three books, 41 CE,) To Marcia, on Consolation (40 CE,) On the Happy Life (58 CE,) On Leisure (62 CE,) On Tranquility of Mind (63 CE,) On the Brevity of Life (49 CE,) To Polybius, on Consolation (44 CE,) and To Helvia, on Consolation (42 CE.)
Seneca’s rhetorical type of tragedy had extensive influence in the Italian and French Renaissance. In Elizabethan England, adaptations of Seneca’s Tenne Tragedies and his terse and epigrammatic literary style inspired the language and psychology of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
It is only luxury and avarice that make poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business ; and when we have provided against cold, hunger, and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Poverty
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.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Wisdom
He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Gratitude, Appreciation, Blessings
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: One liners, Crime
Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Grief
It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Youth, Violence
Light griefs do speak, while sorrow’s tongue is bound.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Sorrow
Every day, therefore, should be regulated as if it were the one that brings up the rear, the one that rounds out and completes our lives.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Death, Wisdom
Everything hangs on one’s thinking.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Attitude
We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Opposition, Adversity
There is no satisfaction in any good without a companion.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Satisfaction
How can a thing possibly govern others when it cannot be governed itself?
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Action
I would so live as if I knew that I received my being only for the benefit of others.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Life
Let a man be never so ungrateful or inhuman, he shall never destroy the satisfaction of my having done a good office.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Goodness
Courage leads starward, fear toward death.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Fear, Courage
Wouldst thou subject all things to thyself?—Subject thyself to thy reason.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Reason
But it is a pretty thing to see what money will do!
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Money
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
There are more people abusive to others than lie open to abuse themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me to-day will have somebody to laugh at him to-morrow.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
The best ideas are common property.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Quotations
He who boasts of his descent, praises the deed of another.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Ancestors, Ancestry
Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy—that he live in accordance with his own nature.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Vision, Purpose
What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Wealth
Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Success, Success & Failure
No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Wisdom, Character
In some there is a kind of graceless modesty that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Obligation
It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Futility
Whatever is well said by another, is mine.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Imitation
Great is he who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man to whom all his plate is no more than earthenware.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Contentment, Greatness
We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Questions
Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Fate
What once were vices are manners now.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Manners
Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Soldiers, Difficulties, Adversity
So called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Energy
Epicurus says, “gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it.” And where is the virtue that has not? But still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Gratitude
When thou hast profited so much that thou respectest thyself, thou mayest let go thy tutor.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Self-respect
The greater part of progress is the desire to progress.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Progress
Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets just like love or liquor.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Conversation
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Slavery
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