Seneca the Younger Quotes

How little authority I have

Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small.

One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.

There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God.

I feel extremely vulnerable.

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

The only safety for the conquered is to expect no safety.

I don't think I'm invincible.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

The establishment is made up of little men, very frightened.

The one without a sword gets humiliated.

Childhood can be hell. One reason … is that as a child you have no power.

It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of Kings.

The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.

The reliance of our race upon the progress and achievements of others for a consideration in sympathy, justice and rights is like a dependence upon a broken stick, resting upon which will eventually consign you to the ground.

People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident.

I hate being helpless, and I hate having to ask people to do things for me.

Helplessness is a mighty power.

No one really has the power, and everybody's trying to get through the day, and everybody's nervous and desperate.

stanchion, n. I don't want to be the strong one, but I don't want to be the weak one either. Why does it feel like it's always one or the other? When we embrace, one of us is always holding the other a little tighter.

I guess we're all one phone call from our knees

Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. Once a day God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day.

Disrespect is the weapon of the weak

In critical moments even the very powerful have need of the weakest.

Whether it's a Christian or a non-Christian, there's nothing like suffering to show us how small, needy, and not in control we are. Suffering has a way of sobering us up to the realization that we can't make it on our own, that we need help, that we're broken.