Seneca the Younger Quotes

In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.

Education has for its object the formation of character.

The teacher who would be true to his mission and accomplish the most good, must give prominence to moral as well as intellectual instruction.

Whilst that the childe is young, let him be instructed in vertue and lytterature.

It depends on education--that holder of the keys which the Almighty hath put into our hands--to open the gates which lead to virtue or to vice, to happiness or misery.

I give priority to up-bringing over education because the ultimate goal of up-bringing is morals, and we have a more urgent need for morals than for knowledge.

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

Is virtue something that can be taught?

Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.

The walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life.

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved.

In 'Reclaiming Virtue,' I argue that we have had an element missing in moral education. That element is 'affect.' Affect is simply the technical word for feeling or emotion.

The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.

Although children are good and well born, vice will blight them if they are not well educated.

Break not the will of the young, but guide it to right ends.

Our common education is not intended to render us good and wise, but learned: it hath not taught us to follow and embrace virtue and prudence, but hath imprinted in us their derivation and etymology;

A good education alters the judgment and manners…

Erudition - that is, reading, writing, and arithmetic - is taught in the schools; but where is the more important quality, character, taught? Nowhere in particular. There is no authorized training for children in character.

The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail.

If there is any better way to teach virtue than by practicing it, I do not know it.

What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?

In order for good to blossom it must be cultivated and exercised by constant practice, and to be truly righteous there is required a daily pruning of the evil growth of our characters by a daily repen- tance from sin.

I urge you to spend your youth profitably in study and virtue.... In brief, let me see in you an abyss of knowledge.