Seneca the Younger Quotes

The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others.

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

Men and nations cannot bear to feel inferior.

The mind is lowered through association with inferiors. With equals it attains equality; and with superiors, superiority.

We can’t all be better than everyone else.

What's the point of being better than someone else?

No man likes to be surpassed by those of this own level.

There are always people who will be better at some thing than you are.

Those who succeed can't forgive a fellow for being a failure, and those who fail can't forgive him for being a success.

There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.

Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.

Mine is better than ours.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

I'm better than Olivier.

When you argue with your inferiors, you convince them of only one thing: they are as clever as you.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

One often has need of one, inferior to himself.

I think it's in human nature to want to have more, to compete with the other and, at some level, to be dissatisfied if someone else has more than you.

Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals.

I've always gravitated toward men who sort of kind of eclipsed me in some way. And I think that it's because I have this need to be better.

I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.

Taking away from someone else will never make you any better.

The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.

So much time is wasted on trying to be better than others.

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.