Introduction,
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman philosopher, statesman, and playwright who lived during the first century AD. He was born in Corduba, a city in the Roman province of Baetica (modern-day Spain), around the year 4 BC. Seneca came from a wealthy family and was educated in Rome, where he studied rhetoric and philosophy under the Stoic philosopher Attalus.
Seneca’s early career was marked by his service as a lawyer and a senator under the emperor Claudius. He was later exiled to the island of Corsica by Claudius’s successor, Nero, but was eventually allowed to return to Rome and become Nero’s tutor and advisor.
Seneca’s philosophical works, which included treatises on ethics and natural philosophy, were widely read and influential in his time. He also wrote numerous plays, including tragedies and satires, which were performed in Rome’s theaters.
Seneca’s relationship with Nero was complex and fraught with tension, and he was eventually implicated in a plot to assassinate the emperor. In 65 AD, Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide, which he did by opening his veins.
Despite his tragic end, Seneca’s works continue to be studied and admired for their insight into Stoic philosophy and their enduring relevance to contemporary debates about ethics and morality.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
Life is like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
There is no great genius without some element of madness.
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
He who is brave is free.
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.
What is wisdom but the passage from denial of reality to acceptance?
It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.
It is not that things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.
Wealth is the slave of a wise man, the master of a fool.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you.
We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.
It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
To be everywhere is to be nowhere.
Time heals what reason cannot.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.
Associate with people who are likely to improve you.
It is not what you endure that matters, but how you endure it.
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
We are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
He who is not busy being born is busy dying.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
To be wise is to be able to distinguish between things that are necessary and things that are not.
There is no one who is born under an unlucky star, there are only people who don’t know how to read the signs.
While we teach, we learn.
It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
The wish for healing has always been half of health.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Love in its essence is spiritual fire.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.
Life, if well lived, is long enough.
He who is brave is free.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
