Seneca the Younger Quotes

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

I know all the critics.

Wise is the man who does not disdain any character and instead, examining him with a searching look, plumbs him to the very main-springs of his being.

True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.

Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.

In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

I don't delve too deep into reviews.

I have labored carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions

Again, if you only know what you know, you don't know if something's good or bad. You don't have perspective.

It is ill to praise, and worse to blame, the thing which you do not understand.

For to know all is to understand all, and this leaves no room for judgment and condemnation.

Were one merely to seek information, one should inquire of the man who hates, but if one wishes to know what truly is, one better ask the one who loves.

It's good to know how to read, but it's dangerous to know how to read and not how to interpret what you're reading.

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

I think naturally you want to judge things.

Seeing someone else perform and letting me be the critic for once... that's not a bad thing.

I've been ripped for being too sensitive, but I do think people need to walk in another person's shoes before they accuse them of being too sensitive.

I think I have a very detailed sense of observation. I am interested in the details of people's lives and what information these details give.

Judgment is more than skill. It sets forth on intellectual seas beyond the shores of hard indisputable factual information.

Knowledge, may it be said, is higher than magic and is more to be sought. It is quite possible to see what is happening and yet not know what is forward, for while seeing is believing, it does not follow that either seeing or believing is knowing.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes anothers.

I think a lot of times we don't pay enough attention to people with a positive attitude because we assume they are naive or stupid or unschooled.

It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.

It isn't right to judge strength as better than good wisdom.