Seneca

“While we wait for life, life passes.”

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”

On the Shortness of Life

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Letters to Lucilius

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

Letters to Lucilius

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

Letters to Lucilius

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

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

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

“There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

“To wish to be well is a part of becoming well.”

“Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.”

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”

“That which Fortune has not given, she cannot take away.”

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

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

“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.”

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

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

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

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

“Leisure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.”

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

“If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.”

“The sun also shines on the wicked.”

“Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life.”

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”

“Life is like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

“Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are.”

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

“Associate with people who are likely to improve you.”

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

“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.”

“How does it help to make troubles heavier by bemoaning them?”

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

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

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Letters to Lucilius

“Love in its essence is spiritual fire.”

“No man was ever wise by chance.”

“One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.”

“Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.”

“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”

“What really ruins our character is the fact that none of us looks back over his life.”

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”

“No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.”

“Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.”

“Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.”

“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.”

“There is no genius without a touch of madness.”

“Virtue is nothing else than right reason.”

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.”

“He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.”

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”

“Only time can heal what reason cannot.”

“We must take a higher view of all things and bear with them more easily: it better becomes a man to scoff at life than to lament over it.”

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.”

“No wind blows in favor of a ship without a destination.”

“The sun shines even on the wicked.”

“Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.”

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

“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.”

“Throw me to the wolves and I will return leading the pack.”

“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don't have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.”

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”

“Every guilty person is his own hangman.”

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

“We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted?”

“The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”

“Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms — you will be able to use them better when you are older.”

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

“Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always to take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases.”

“Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.”

“He who is brave is free.”

“To be everywhere is to be nowhere.”