Seneca

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

All vices sink into our whole being, if we do not crush them before they gain a footing; and in like manner these sad, pitiable, and discordant feelings end by feeding upon their own bitterness, until the unhappy mind takes a sort of morbid delight in grief.

Inwardly, we ought to be different in all respects, but our exterior should conform to society.

Now every evil is just as great as we consider it to be: we have, therefore, the remedy in our own hands.

No thoughtless person ought to be left alone; in such cases he only plans folly, and heaps up future dangers for himself or for others; he brings into play his base desires; the mind displays what fear or shame used to repress; it whets his boldness, stirs his passions, and goads his anger.

Nothing becomes one who inflicts punishment less than anger, because the punishment has all the more power to work reformation if the sentence be pronounced with deliberate judgment.

At last, then, away with all these treacherous goods! They look better to those who hope for them than to those who have attained them.

Let a child hear the truth, and sometimes fear it: let him always reverence it.

Real joy, believe me, is a stern matter.

No passion bears a more troubled aspect: it befouls the fairest face, makes fierce the expression which before was peaceful.

These men simply lack the means whereby they may unfold their wickedness.

A good man delights in receiving advice: all the worst men are the most impatient of guidance.

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.

Learning virtue means unlearning vice.

Such men’s very pleasures are restless and disturbed by various alarms, and at the most joyous moment of all there rises the anxious thought: “How long will this last?”

There is a pleasure in being in one’s own company as long as possible, when a man has made himself worth enjoying.

Such men, Serenus, are not unhealthy, but they are not accustomed to being healthy; just as even a quiet sea or lake nevertheless displays a certain amount of ripple when its waters are subsiding after a storm.

Every honourable act is voluntary.

Know then that every station of life is transitory, and that what has ever happened to anybody may happen to you also.