Seneca the Younger Quotes

I'm not saying I'm perfect. But I'm someone who analyses and reflects on what I do, whether it's in keeping with the ethics that I talk about in public. That's how I've been all my life.

Before thou reprehend another, take heed thou art not culpable in what thou goest about to reprehend. He that cleanses a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blur.

Hypocrites in the Church? Yes, and in the lodge and at the home. Don't hunt through the Church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the mirror. Hypocrites? Yes. See that you make the number one less.

I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could.

Whenever you do a thing, tho' it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you and act accordingly.

I don't have a problem doing interviews. It's not punishment. There's things about it that I don't like. No one else is really saying these kinds of things, so someone has to. I don't think that it's the most humbled thing to talk about yourself for hours and hours and hours.

A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside of himself or herself ... lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.

Govern thy Life and Thoughts, as if the whole World were to see the one, and read the other.

A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.

If any speak ill of thee, flee home to thy own conscience, and examine thy heart: if thou be guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction: make use of both; so shalt thou distil honey out of gall, and out of an open enemy create a secret friend.

I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.

His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.

If any speak ill of thee, fly home to thy own conscience and examine thy heart. If thou art guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction.

I see what you mean. It must be a huge relief, and an easy way out, to think the devil is always outside of us. (…) we would stop looking for Sheitan outside and instead focus on ourselves. What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others.” (p. 257).

I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, of this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

I'm my own biggest critic. I'm the one who has to go home and look at myself in the mirror.

More than my questions about the efficacy of social actions were my questions about my own motives. Do i want social justice for the oppressed or do i jusy want to be known as a socially active person? I spend 95 percent of my time thinking about myself anyway. I dont have to watch the evening news to see the world is bad, i only have to look at myself. I am not brow beating here, i am only saying that true charge , true living giving, God honoring change would have to start with the individual. I was the very problem i had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read “I am the problem

Let us ask ourselves seriously and honestly, 'What do I believe after all? What manner of man am I after all? What sort of show would I make after all, if the people around me knew my heart and all my secret thoughts?" What sort of show then do I already make in the sight of Almighty God, who sees every man exactly as he is?'

You've got to demand the truth from yourself.

Every night I go over what I did in the day, in ethical or moral terms. Have I treated people properly? Did I tell the truth?

I want to be able, as days go by, always to look myself straight in the eye.

I try to be a good person. I know what my downfalls are, so that's a good thing.

I don't consider myself enigmatic, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my public persona.

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

I'm an introspective dude.