Seneca the Younger Quotes

The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder.

It is part of the unceasing human endeavor to prove that the spirit of man can transcend the flaws of his own nature.

Man’s strength resides in his capacity and desire to elevate himself, so as to attain the good. To travel step by step toward the heights. And that is all he can do. To reach heaven and remain there is beyond his powers: Even Moses had to return to earth. Is it the same for evil?

It is not to be expected that human nature will change in a day.

I write human stories. I write about people. Not as a product of their environment. But from the stance that everybody is made of the same thing.

The way you become divine is to become wholly human.

Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

I'm a human being. I'm not perfect.

Probably all the books I've ever written have been efforts to define the boundaries of humanity.

And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?

The writers are writing human beings, and they're writing about the human condition and how difficult it is to function in that condition. I think it's one of the charms of the show, the idea of redemption and working towards becoming better people, for everybody involved.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature.

Every day, we have to strive to be better people. Some days we give in to weakness, and sometimes we give in to strength.

Man's nature is fundamentally good, or perhaps it is neither good nor evil. In any case, man is something to work on. We must hold fast to this fact - man is something to work on.

So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born.

Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.

I have always thought that humanity was animal-like. The Confucian theory was man could be improved, but I'm not sure he can be. He can be trained; he can be disciplined.

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.

A perfect human being: Man in search of his ideal of perfection. Nothing less.

Sufis teach that we first must battle and destroy the evil within ourselves by shining upon it the good within, and then we learn to battle the evil in others by helping their higher selves gain control of their lower selves.

If, then, faith widens the connections, it elevates the man.

The more we reduce ourselves to machines in the lower things, the more force we shall set free to use in the higher.

Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change themselves