Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Senecawas a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionStatesman
age-and-aging among declining embrace extreme gradually love maintain pleasure reached sweetest
As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.
leaders-and-leadership
He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.
amiable ancestry born unless
No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.
abandoned both desires limits moderation nature resources restricted sign utter
That moderation which nature prescribes, which limits our desires by resources restricted to our needs, has abandoned the field; it has now come to this - that to want only what is enough is a sign both of boorishness and of utter destitution.
according dictates nature notions
If you live according to the dictates of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of man, you will never be rich.
powerful
He is the most powerful who has himself, in his power.
insult
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it.
dash force foreign grow men wear
It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.
dry eyes merely observe shed tears
Many shed tears merely for show, and have dry eyes when no one's around to observe them.
dislike great measure mind prefer sign
It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and prefer things in measure to things in excess.
brainy cannot gem man nor polished
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
false
True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.
certainty delay depend depends forward greatest loss relinquish time time-and-time-management
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
drag fate fates lead
The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.