SENECA THE YOUNGER

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

Life, if well lived, is long enough.

That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.

Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

All art is but imitation of nature.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

If you judge, investigate.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

He who is brave is free.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.