Dialogues and Essays Quotes

“It is not what you endure that matters, but how you endure it.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Wherever there is a human being, there exists the opportunity for an act of kindness.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“The man who fears death will never do anything worthy of a man who is alive.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“It is better to conquer our grief than to deceive it. For if it has withdrawn, being merely beguiled by pleasures and preoccupations, it starts up again and from its very respite gains force to savage us. But the grief that has been conquered by reason is calmed for ever. I am not therefore going to prescribe for you those remedies which I know many people have used, that you divert or cheer yourself by a long or pleasant journey abroad, or spend a lot of time carefully going through your accounts and administering your estate, or constantly be involved in some new activity. All those things help only for a short time; they do not cure grief but hinder it. But I would rather end it than distract it.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Let us take pleasure in what we have received and make no comparison; no man will ever be happy if tortured by the greater happiness of another.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Those who forget the past, ignore the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and filled with anxiety: when they come to face death, the wretches understand too late that for such a long time they have busied themselves in doing nothing.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“The happy man is satisfied with his present situation, no matter what it is, and eyes his fortune with contentment; the happy man is the one who permits reason to evaluate every condition of his existence.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“The man who fears death will never do anything worthy of a man who is alive; but he who knows that these were the conditions drawn up for him when he was conceived will live according to this rule and at the same time, through the same strength of mind, he will ensure that none of what happens to him will come unexpectedly.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Let Nature make whatever use she pleases of matter, which is her own: lets us be cheerful and brave in the face of all, and consider that nothing of our own perishes. What is the duty of a good man? To offer himself to fate.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“What difference does it make whether they are slaves of free men, freeborn or freedmen, owing their freedom to the laws or to a gift made in the presence of friends? Wherever there is a human being, there exists the opportunity for an act of kindness.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Be aware, then, that every human condition is subject to change, and that whatever mishap can befall any man can also happen to you.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“we should often withdraw into ourselves; for mixing with persons of dissimilar natures throws into disorder our settled composure and wakens our passions anew, exacerbating whatever is weak in the mind and not properly healed.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“When the lamp has been removed from my sight, and my wife, no stranger now to my habit, has fallen silent, I examine the whole of my day and retrace my actions and words; I hide nothing from myself, pass over nothing. For why should I be afraid of any of my mistakes, when I can say: ‘Beware of doing that again, and this time I pardon you.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Not all men are wounded in the same place; and so you ought to know what part of you is weak, so you can give it the most protection.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“We live among wicked man through our own wickedness. One thing alone can bring us peace, an agreement to treat one another with kindness.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“How much better it is that you defeat anger than that it defeats itself!”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Anger will abate and become more controlled when it knows it must come before a judge each day.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“No condition is so distressing that a balanced mind cannot find some comfort in it.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“A man should therefore grow accustomed to his state and complain about it as little as possible, seizing upon whatever good it may have.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“We must, therefore, take a less serious view of all things, tolerating them in a spirit of acceptance: It is more human to laugh at life than to weep tears over it.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Those who are busy with other things do not notice it until the end comes.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“The greatest obstacle to living is expectation, which depends on tomorrow and wastes today.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“It is shameful to hate a person who deserves your praises; but how much more shameful it is to hate someone for the very cause that makes him deserve your pity.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Your ears are not simply for hearing tuneful sounds, mellow and sweetly played in harmony: you should also listen to laughter and weeping, to words flattering and acrimonious, to merriment and distress, to the language of men and to the roars and barking of animals.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Of all men only those who find time for philosophy are at leisure, only they are truly alive; for it is not only their own lifetime they guard well; they add every age to their own; all the years that have passed before them they requisition for their store.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“Here is a spirited remark of that brave man Demetrius* I remember having heard: ‘I can make only this complaint against you, immortal gods,’ he said, ‘that you did not make your will known to me before now; for all the sooner would I have reached the state I now am in, after your summons. Do you wish to take my children? It was for you I fathered them. Do you wish to take some part of my body? Take it: it is no great thing I offer you, and soon I will leave the whole behind. Do you wish to take my life? Why should I object at all to your taking back what you gave? All that you ask for shall be willingly given. What troubles me, then? I should have preferred to offer than to deliver. What need was there to take by force? You could have had it as a gift; but not even now will you take it so, for nothing is forced from a man’s grip unless he seeks to keep it there.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“a victory won without danger is won without fame.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“he will run no small risk if he is brushed by a gentle breeze. Although all things in excess bring harm, the greatest danger comes from excessive good fortune: it stirs the brain, invites the mind to entertain idle fancies, and shrouds in thick fog the distinction between falsehood and truth. Would it not be better to endure unending misfortune, having enlisted the help of virtue, than to burst with limitless and extravagant blessings? Men meet a gentler death through starvation, but explode from gorging themselves.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“That very thing which is called dying, the soul’s departure from the body, is so brief that its swiftness cannot be perceived: whether a knot strangles your throat, or water stops you breathing, or you fall to the hard ground below and it crushes your skull, or flame you inhale cuts off the process of breathing: whatever it is, your end comes fast. Are you not blushing with shame? For so long you have dreaded what happens in a moment!”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

“You are wrong if you think anyone has been exempted from ill; the man who has known happiness for many a year will receive his share some day; whoever seems to have been set free from this has only been granted a delay.”
― Seneca, Dialogues and Essays