Seneca the Younger Quotes

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

We should make virtue our master, not our servant.

I've been deeply influenced by Aristotle's idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. 'The control of the appetites by right reason,' is how he defined it.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

Even virtue is an art; and even its devotees are divided into those who practise it and those who are merely amateurs.

Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have.

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

For Aristotle, goodness is a kind of prospering in the precarious affair of being human.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.

I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent.

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.

The whole of virtue consists in its practice.