Seneca the Younger Quotes

Happiness is impossible, and even inconceivable, to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, or fear. To be happy, you must be reasonable, or you must be tamed. You must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you. To be happy, you must be wise.

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

I do think about aging. I have those moments of panic and vanity, but life keeps getting better, so you can't worry about it too much.

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

In my mind and in my heart, I feel okay. I cannot complain that I haven't lived long enough, but I'd like to live longer.

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.

I know what I want from life and how to get it. That doesn't mean I'll go to any limits to get that. If I get it great, if I don't, it's still fine.

The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.

Enough is abundance to the wise.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.

Freedom is not having everything we crave, it's being able to go without the things we crave and being OK with it.

We have a good life when we manage to live with both satisfied and unsatisfied needs, when we are not obsessed by what is beyond our reach.

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

Everything in moderation, and there's a perfect balance in this life if we can find it.

Contentment consist not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.

No one longs to live more than someone growing old.

I'm one year away from 70 and I've had a good run. I really believe I'm okay.

The good and the wise lead quiet lives.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.