Letters From A Stoic

by Seneca

the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed, Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.

My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own: every one forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue.

it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

Everywhere means nowhere.

nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about.

I tell you that it is the sign of an over-nice appetite to toy with many dishes; for when they are manifold and varied, they cloy but do not nourish.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Those persons indeed put last first and confound their duties, who, violating the rules of Theophrastus, judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him.

For love of bustle is not industry,— it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.

"Some men shrink into dark corners, to such a degree that they see darkly by day."

Do you not suppose that virtue will be as efficacious as excessive fear?

Something to think and reseadrch about

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it, or believes that living through many consulships is a great blessing.

A long life isnt better than having a life of quality and that which has been lived

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die. For this reason, make life as a whole agreeable to yourself by banishing all worry about it.

No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss;

nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when l...

What matter, therefore, how powerful he be whom you fear, when every one possesses the power which inspires your fear?

We must ponder this thought, and thoughts of the like nature, if we desire to be calm as we await that last hour, the fear of which makes all previous hours uneasy.

"Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat,— the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.