50 Seneca Quotes: Learn the Wisdom Behind the Stoic Life

1. "We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

2. "A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials."

3. “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”

4. “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”

5. “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”

6. “Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

7. “He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”

8. “Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.”

9. “The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.”

10. “What is harder than rock? What is softer than water? Yet hard rocks are hollowed out by soft water?”

11. “When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”

12. “It’s not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.”

13. “You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.”

14. “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

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

16. “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.”

17. “He who is brave is free”

18. “If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.”

19. “Only time can heal what reason cannot.”

20. “Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”

21. “You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”

22. “Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy. Their continual attention to other’s behavior shows how they are boring.”

23. “A guilty person sometimes has the luck to escape detection, but never to feel sure of it.”

24. “Love sometimes injures. Friendship always benefits, After friendship is formed you must trust, but before that, you must judge.”

25. “A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.”

1. "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

2. “All cruelty springs from weakness.”

3. "It is quality rather than quantity that matters."

4. “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”

5. “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”

6. “No man was ever wise by chance.”

7. “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”

8. “Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.”

9. “We learn not in the school, but in life.”

10. “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”

11. “No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity.”

12. “Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.”

13. “Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.”

14. “Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.”

15. “If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”

16. “Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.”

17. “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

18. “People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax.”

19. “Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.”

20. “It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.”

21. “There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”

22. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

23. “A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand.”

24. “Life is long if you know how to use it.”

25. “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."