Seneca the Younger Quotes

It is vanity to desire a long life and to take no heed of a good life.

Wish not so much to live long as to live well.

Not a soul takes thought how well he may live- only how long: yet a good life might be everybody's, a long one can be nobody's.

They only have lived long who have lived virtuously.

There appears to exist a greater desire to live long than to live well! Measure by man's desires, he cannot live long enough; measure by his good deeds, and he has not lived long enough; measure by his evil deeds, and he has lived too long.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

Human lifespan used to be 30 years, 25 years. But there's no basic, fundamental reason why it has to be short.

Everyone dies. It is how one lives that matters.

The purpose of life is to bring forth goodness. Now, in this life.

But that is the object of long living, that man should cease to care about life.

It is no happiness to live long, nor unhappiness to die soon; happy is he that hath lived long enough to die well.

It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.

One of the things that has helped me as much as any other is not how long I am going to live, but how much I can do while living.

I don’t care how old I live! I just want to be living while I am living!

The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.

Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.

Life is long if it is full.

A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.

Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

There's no one who has been living for centuries.

The intention to live as long as possible isn't one of the mind's best intentions, because quantity isn't the same as quality.

I hope no man takes what I said about the living and dieing of men for mathematical demonstration.

Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.