Peace of Mind Quotes

“I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.”
― seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“Add to this that he who laughs at the human race deserves better of it than he who mourns for it, for the former leaves it some good hopes of improvement, while the latter stupidly weeps over what he has given up all hopes of mending.”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind (Illustrated): De Tranquillitate Animi

“We must limit the running to and fro which most men practise, rambling about houses, theatres, and marketplaces. They mind other men's business, and always seem as though they themselves had something to do. If you ask one of them as he comes out of his own door, "Whither are you going?" he will answer, "By Hercules, I do not know: but I shall see some people and do something." They wander purposelessly seeking for something to do, and do, not what they have made up their minds to do, but what has casually fallen in their way. They move uselessly and without any plan, just like ants crawling over bushes, which creep up to the top and then down to the bottom again without gaining anything. Many men spend their lives in exactly the same fashion, which one may call a state of restless indolence.”
― Seneca, Of Peace of Mind

“But it does no good to have got rid of the causes of individual sorrow; for one is sometimes seized by hatred of the whole human race. When you reflect how rare is simplicity, how unknown is innocence, and how good faith scarcely exists, except when it is profitable, and when you think of all the throng of successful crimes and of the gains and losses of lust, both equally hateful, and of ambition that, so far from restraining itself within its own bounds, now gets glory from baseness — when we remember these things, the mind is plunged into night, and as though the virtues, which it is now neither possible to expect nor profitable to possess, had been overthrown, there comes overwhelming gloom. We ought, therefore, to bring ourselves to believe that all the vices of the crowd are, not hateful, but ridiculous, and to imitate Democritus rather than Heraclitus. For the latter, whenever he went forth into public, used to weep, the former to laugh; to the one all human doings seemed to be miseries, to the other follies. And so we ought to adopt a lighter view of things, and put up with them in an indulgent spirit; it is more human to laugh at life than to lament over it. Add, too, that he deserves better of the human race also who laughs at it than he who bemoans it; for the one allows it some measure of good hope, while the other foolishly weeps over things that he despairs of seeing corrected.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“I fancy that many men would have arrived at wisdom if they had not fancied that they had already arrived, if they had not dissembled about certain traits in their character and passed by others with their eyes shut. For there is no reason for you to suppose that the adulation of other people is more ruinous to us than our own. Who dares to tell himself the truth? Who, though he is surrounded by a horde of applauding sycophants, is not for all that his own greatest flatterer? I beg you, therefore, if you have any remedy by which you could stop this fluctuation of mine, to deem me worthy of being indebted to you for tranquillity. I know that these mental disturbances of mine are not dangerous and give no promise of a storm; to express what I complain of in apt metaphor, I am distressed, not by a tempest, but by sea-sickness. Do you, then, take from me this trouble, whatever it be, and rush to the rescue of one who is struggling in full sight of land.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“You were born for death; a silent funeral is less troublesome!”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“My sight falters a little, for I can lift up my heart towards it more easily than my eyes. And so I come back, not worse, but sadder, and I do not walk among my paltry possessions with head erect as before, and there enters a secret sting and the doubt whether the other life is not better. None of these things changes me, yet none of them fails to disturb me.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“am possessed by the very greatest love of frugality, I must confess; I do not like a couch made up for display, nor clothing brought forth from a chest or pressed by weights and a thousand mangles to make it glossy, but homely and cheap, that is neither preserved nor to be put on with anxious care; the food that I like is neither prepared nor watched by a household of slaves, it does not need to be ordered many days before nor to be served by many hands, but is easy to get and abundant; there is nothing far-fetched or costly about it, nowhere will there be any lack of it, it is burdensome neither to the purse nor to the body, nor will it return by the way it entered; the servant that I like is a young home-born slave without training or skill; the silver is my country-bred father's heavy plate bearing no stamp of the maker's name, and the table is not notable for the variety of its markings or known to the town from the many fashionable owners through whose hands it has passed, but one that stands for use, and will neither cause the eyes of any guest to linger upon it with pleasure nor fire them with envy.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“Nevertheless the state in which I find myself most of all — for why should I not admit the truth to you as to a physician? — is that I have neither been honestly set free from the things that I hated and feared, nor, on the other hand, am I in bondage to them; while the condition in which I am placed is not the worst, yet I am complaining and fretful — I am neither sick nor well.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“Não existe nada de tão amargo que não encontre consolo numa alma equilibrada.”
― Seneca, Da Tranquilidade da Alma

“the best amount of property to have is that which is enough to keep us from poverty, and which yet is not far removed from it.”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“What you desire, to be undisturbed, is a great thing, nay, the greatest thing of all, and one which raises a man almost to the level of a god. The Greeks call this calm steadiness of mind euthymia, and Democritus's treatise upon it is excellently written: I call it peace of mind:”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“Ready and determined, I follow the advice of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, all of whom bid one take part in public affairs, though none of them ever did so himself: and then, as soon as something disturbs my mind, which is not used to receiving shocks, as soon as something occurs which is either disgraceful, such as often occurs in all men's lives, or which does not proceed quite easily, or when subjects of very little importance require me to devote a great deal of time to them, I go back to my life of leisure, and, just as even tired cattle go faster when they are going home, I wish to retire and pass my life within the walls of my house. "No one," I say, "that will give me no compensation worth such a loss shall ever rob me of a day. Let my mind be contained within itself and improve itself: let it take no part with other men's affairs, and do nothing which depends on the approval of others: let me enjoy a tranquility undisturbed by either public or private troubles.”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“It is by far the best plan, therefore, to mingle leisure with business, whenever chance impediments or the state of public affairs forbid one's leading an active life: for one is never so cut off from all pursuits as to find no room left for honorable action.”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“Nessuna spesa è più nobile di quella che si fa per l'acquisto dei libri, ma nessuna spesa è meno giudiziosa di quella fatta per l'acquisto di troppi libri. A che serve una enorme quantità di volumi, dei quali, nella brevità della vita, si abbia appena il tempo di leggerne i titoli. Meglio leggere e rileggere pochi autori eccellenti che leggicchiarne migliaia.”
― Seneca, La pace dell'animo

“But because," he continues, "in this mad world of ambition where chicanery so frequently twists right into wrong, simplicity is hardly safe, and is always sure to meet with more that hinders than helps it, we ought indeed to withdraw from the forum and public life, but a great mind has an opportunity to display itself freely even in private life; nor, just as the activity of lions and animals is restrained by their dens, is it so of man's, whose greatest achievements are wrought in retirement. Let a man, however, hide himself away bearing in mind that, wherever be secretes his leisure, he should be willing to benefit the individual man and mankind by his intellect, his voice, and his counsel. For the man that does good service to the state is not merely he who brings forward candidates and defends the accused and votes for peace and war, but he also who admonishes young men, who instills virtue into their minds, supplying the great lack of good teachers, who lays hold upon those that are rushing wildly in pursuit of money and luxury, and draws them back, and, if he accomplishes nothing else, at least retards them — such a man performs a public service even in private life.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“For it is the nature of the human mind to be active and prone to movement. Welcome to it is every opportunity for excitement and distraction, and still more welcome to all those worst natures which willingly wear themselves out in being employed. Just as there are some sores which crave the hands that will hurt them and rejoice to be touched, and as a foul itch of the body delights in whatever scratches, exactly so, I would say, do these minds upon which, so to speak, desires have broken out like wicked sores find pleasure in toil and vexation. For there are certain things that delight our body also while causing it a sort of pain, as turning over and changing a side that is not yet tired and taking one position after another to get cool. Homer's hero Achilles is like that — lying now on his face, now on his back, placing himself in various attitudes, and, just as sick men do, enduring nothing very long and using changes as remedies.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“And then, whenever something upsets my mind, which is unused to meeting shocks, whenever something happens that is either unworthy of me, and many such occur in the lives of all human beings, or that does not proceed very easily, or when things that are not to be accounted of great value demand much of my time, I turn back to my leisure, and just as wearied flocks too do, I quicken my pace towards home.”
― Seneca, On The Tranquility Of The Mind

“Advierte, pues, que naciste para la muerte, y que el entierro con silencio tiene menos de molesto”
― Seneca, de tranquillitate animi

“Nace esto de la destemplanza del ánimo y de la timidez y poco resultado de los deseos, que o no se atreven a tanto como apetecen o no lo consiguen y se levantan tan sólo en esperanza; siempre son inestables y movedizos, lo que por fuerza ha de suceder a los que penden de algo. Por todos los caminos tratan de realizar sus deseos y se adoctrinan y obligan en cosas honestas y difíciles, pero cuando sus trabajos no tienen resultados, los atormenta su deshonra infructuosa y no se arrepienten de haber querido el mal, sino de haberlo querido en vano. P.14”
― Seneca, de tranquillitate animi

“Write something therefore in a simple style, merely to pass the time, for your own use, and not for publication. Less labour is needed when one does not look beyond the present." Then”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi

“What's the point of having countless books and libraries, whose titles could hardly be read in a lifetime. The learner is not taught, but burdened by the sheer volume, and it's better to plant the seeds of a few authors than to be scattered about by many.”
― Seneca, Peace of Mind: De Tranquillitate Animi