Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

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)

No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Character, Wisdom

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Shame

Just where death is expecting you is something we cannot know; so, for your part, expect him everywhere.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Death, Wisdom

Love of bustle is not industry.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Try, Love

The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Fate

A great step towards independence is good humored stomach
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Independence

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Purpose

If you wish to fear nothing, consider that everything is to be feared.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Anxiety, Fear

How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant are the things that are honorable finally become, for you, the same.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Action, Habit, Honor

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Birthdays, Eternity, Death

Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by action. If this be true, not only do the doctrines of wisdom help us but the precepts also, which check and banish our emotions by a sort of official decree.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Advice

Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Philosophy

Wouldst thou subject all things to thyself?—Subject thyself to thy reason.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Reason

You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Learning, Wisdom, Success, Modesty

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Action, Courage, Difficulty, Risk, Virtues, Perspective, Bravery

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Worry, Anxiety

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Sin

See what daily exercise does for one.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Energy

We should live as if we were in public view, and think, too, as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our hearts—which someone can!
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Action

No man will swim ashore and take his baggage with him.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Concentration, Focus

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Modesty

The mind unlearns with difficulty what has long been impressed on it.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Difficulty

The mind is a matter over every kind of fortune; itself acts in both ways, being the cause of its own happiness and misery.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Mind, The Mind

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the Gods.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

Drunkenness is nothing but a self-induced state of insanity.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Energy, Alcohol, Madness, Alcoholism, Society

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Life

The foundation of true joy is in the conscience.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Conscience

One crime has to be concealed by another.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Crime

With parsimony a little is sufficient; without it nothing is sufficient; but frugality makes a poor man rich.
Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Topics: Money

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