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)
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: One liners, Luck, Preparation, Opportunity
The thing that matters is not what you bear, but how you bear it.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Counsel 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.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Friendship, Advice, Judgement
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Fear, Worry, Anxiety
A great step toward independence is a good humored stomach.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Away with the world’s opinion of you—it’s always unsettled and divided.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Courage
Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Modesty
Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Fate
The fearful face usually betrays great guilt.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Guilt, One liners
Light griefs do speak, while sorrow’s tongue is bound.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Sorrow
Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Love of bustle is not industry.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Try, Love
Whatever begins, also ends.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Ending
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Suffering
What once were vices are manners now.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Manners
A great mind becomes a great fortune.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Fortune
A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer’s hands
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Weapon
There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Punishment
What difference does it make, after all, what your position in life is if you dislike it yourself?
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Life
The real compensation of a right action is inherent in having performed it.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Right
See what daily exercise does for one.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Energy
What’s the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Attitude, Happy, Perception
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: Purpose, Vision
Nothing is so false as human life, nothing so treacherous. God knows no one would have accepted it as a gift, if it had not been given without our knowledge.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Life
The primary sign of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Ability
However degraded or wretched a fellow mortal may be, he is still a member of our common species.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Humanity
What madness it is for a man to starve himself to enrich his heir, and so turn a friend into an enemy! For his joy at your death will be proportioned to what you leave him.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Inheritance, Service
Why is there no man who confesses his vices? It is because he has not yet laid them aside. It is a waking man only who can tell his dreams.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Virtue, Vice
Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Adversity
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