Seneca the Younger Quotes

Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by actions.

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

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.

To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude.

In the matter of learning, the difference between the earnest and the careless student stands out clearly. The same holds true in the mastering of passion and the weaknesses to which our nature is subject, as in the acquiring of virtue.

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

The doer alone learneth.

Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.

I'd rather play a tune on a horn, but I've always felt that I didn't want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you've got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it's better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.

To be good, we must do good; and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power.

The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.

I take it to be from the greatest extremes, both in virtue and in vice, that the uniformly virtuous and reformed in life can derive the greatest and most salutary truths and impressions.

… the field of action is not the field of intellect, it is the field of character; and change or development of character is always slow work.

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.

I am fiercely loyal and over-possessive, but I am learning to control my being possessive. I have become quite mature, though not as much as I would like to be, but have still improved tremendously. I can't hide my feelings, and it takes a lot of effort to be closed about things I feel for.

It is never too early to try and plant [good principles] in a child, and never too late to cultivate them in the most neglected person.

Virtue does not consist in the absence of the passions, but in the control of them.

A learned person will become noble only when he or she has put into real practice what has been learned, instead of mere words.

When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again.

There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.

Rate the task above the prize; will not the mind be raised? Fight thine own faults, not the faults of others; will not evil be mended?

When wisdom reaches the acme of perfection, it will suppress the vicious instincts and injurious desires.

No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.

Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

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