A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.
More quotes from Lucius Annaeus Seneca
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
Whatever fortune has raised to a height, she has raised only to cast it down.
The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man… It is more powerful than external circumstances.
One must steer, not talk.
Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.
A great fortune is a great slavery.
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.
Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.
There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.
The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned.
True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.
He who has great power should use it lightly.
If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.
When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.
It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.
If you judge, investigate.
No one is laughable who laughs at himself.
All art is but imitation of nature.
Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.
Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.
The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.
No man was ever wise by chance.
The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
He who is brave is free.
Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.
A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.
What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.
Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.
One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.
Every reign must submit to a greater reign.
Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.
I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?
He that does good to another does good also to himself.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Life, if well lived, is long enough.
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.
Time discovers truth.
The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.
Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.
Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.
Every sin is the result of a collaboration.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
The wish for healing has always been half of health.
Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is.
What is true belongs to me!
It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.
No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.
Those who boast of their descent, brag on what they owe to others.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.
The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.
If you wished to be loved, love.
A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.
I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.
Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.
A person’s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.
There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.
Do everything as in the eye of another.
The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.
All cruelty springs from weakness.
It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters.
Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.
To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.
No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.
We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
Whatever is well said by another, is mine.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?
Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.
Where fear is, happiness is not.
The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.
See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
May be is very well, but Must is the master. It is my duty to show justice without recompense.
Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.
We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.
Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.
If you would judge, understand.
You learn to know a pilot in a storm.
There is no delight in owning anything unshared.
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
In war there is no prize for runner-up.
For greed all nature is too little.
In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.
That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.
I don’t trust liberals, I trust conservatives.
Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.
I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.
For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.
It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.
There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
A great mind becomes a great fortune.
Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.
The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.
There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.
Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.
It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.
The heart is great which shows moderation in the midst of prosperity.
Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.
I don’t consider myself bald, I’m just taller than my hair.
A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Life is warfare.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.
He has committed the crime who profits by it.
Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.
Every guilty person is his own hangman.
Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.
Love in its essence is spiritual fire.