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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Pliny the Younger Roman Senator, Writer
Cicero Roman Philosopher
Seneca the Elder (Marcus Annaeus Seneca) Roman Rhetorician
Petronius Roman Courtier
Martial Ancient Roman Latin Poet
Persius Roman Poet
Lucretius Roman Epicurean Philosopher
Pliny the Elder Roman Scholar
Juvenal Roman Poet
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) Roman Poet