Seneca the Younger Quotes

Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?

The necessary thing for anyone to be happy and contented as long as he lives is working for the ones who will come after him rather than working for himself... One can reach the true delight and happiness in the life only by working for the existence, honor, and happiness of the future generations.

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

One must care about a world one will not see.

A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.

The future that I will not live to see is the one my children will live in. That's my immortality. And I shouldn't try to mortgage theirs for my benefit.

In all your acts, self interest shall be cast away. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people, and have always in view not only the present, but of the coming generations.

I am not here forever, so I wanted to do the best for the coming generation.

The ultimate test of a man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.

Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?

Sometimes leadership is planting trees under whose shade you'll never sit. It may not happen fully till after I'm gone. But I know that the steps we're taking are the right steps.

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

Whatever pain we go through now, our suffering will provide for the future of the next generations.

It's time to put country ahead of party. It's time to put the next generation ahead of the next election.

Legacy is not what I did for myself. It's what I'm doing for the next generation.

The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit.

In the fullness of time, when it is our turn to give, we must in turn plant gardens that we may never eat the fruit of, which will benefit the generations to come.

That attitude of arrogance, that attitude of "It's all about me. It's all about what I can get out of life now" - well, I'm personally driven by wanting to get out of my life the best I can achieve as a gift for those who come after me.

The man who thinks only of his own generation is born for few.

Rejection is good. Putting others ahead of self, giving things away. Success, money, power, fame, happiness, friends; any kind of pleasure - giving it all away, in the pyramid scheme of life, with the knowledge that everything will be returned, and being satisfied with that knowledge; not with the actual return of things, but the idea of the return of things. There is death.

While we may not live to see the full realization of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did.

Learn how to grow out of yourself and into the world of others: Plant a shade tree under which you know you will never sit. Set some goals that may benefit your children or an orphanage or the employees of your company or future generations or your own city, fifty years from now.

Hence it is that old men do plant young trees, the fruit whereof another age shall take.

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves.

Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of humanity, of God.