Seneca the Younger Quotes

I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light.

Did you ever see a portrait of a great man without perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety?

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.

I'm attracted to artists like Frida Kahlo, because her work was her life, her questions, her outrage, her suffering, her pain. Everything is in her work.

The deepest rivers make least din, The silent soule doth most abound in care.

There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

Silence in love betrays more woe - Than words though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity.

Small sorrows speak great ones are silent.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence.

A man who has not suffered has nothing to tell with his paintings.

Light griefs are plaintive , but great ones are dumb

When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.

What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak... It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us.

There is a terrible weight in all kinds of beauty

Hate is too heavy a burden to bear.

I suffer so much in this life. That is what they [the audience] are feeling when I sing, that is why they cry. People who felt nothing in this life cannot sing.

Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths.

In grief, words are a poor consolation - silence and agonizing tears are all that is left the sufferer.

There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to which sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite pulsation.

Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.

The silence was killing me. And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out.

Words got in the way. The things we felt the hardest--like what it was like to have a boy touch you as if you were made of light, or what it meant to be the only person in the room who wasn't noticed--weren't sentences; they were knots in the wood of our bodies, places where our blood flowed backward. If you asked me, not that anyone ever did, the only words worth saying were I'm sorry.