342 Quotes by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance, and the simple way of life need not be a crude one.

What fortune has made yours is not your own.

The boon that could be given can be withdrawn.

Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.

It is a great man that can treat his earthenware as if it was silver, and a man who treats his silver as if it was earthenware is no less great.

Preserve a sense of proportion in your attitude to everything that pleases you, and make the most of them while they are at their best.

A woman is not beautiful when her ankle or arm wins compliments, but when her total appearance diverts admiration from the individual parts of her body.

If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.