Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotes on Man (35 Quotes)


    Why does no one confess his sins Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.


    The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.


    If you would make a man happy, do not add to his possessions but subtract from the sum of his desires.


    Nothing is more dishonorable than an old man, heavy with years, who has no other evidence of his having lived long except his age.

    To see a man fearless in dangers. untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

    It goes far toward making a man faithful to let him understand that you think him so and he that does but suspect I will deceive him, gives me a sort of right to do so.

    True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man 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 abundantly sufficient for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us, and within our reach but we shut our eyes and, like people in the dark, fall foul of the very thing we search for without finding it. Tranquility is a certain quality of mind which no condition of fortune can either exalt or depress.

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

    The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and perturbations to understand and do our duties to God and man, and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the future.

    Happy the man who can endure the highest And the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power.

    It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

    The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man... It is more powerful than external circumstances.



    Great is he who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man to whom all plate is no more than earthenware.

    There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.


    Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

    I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.

    If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

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


    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.


    It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.

    A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.


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




    We are so vain as to set the highest value upon those things to which nature has assigned the lowest place. What can be more coarse and rude in the mind than the precious metals, or more slavish and dirty than the people that dig and work them And yet they defile our minds more than our bodies, and make the possessor fouler than the artificer of them. Rich men, in fine, are only the greater slaves.

    The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience temperance in prosperity, and patient courage in adversity.


    More Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Life - Money & Wealth - Mind - God - Nature - Courage - Madness - Wisdom & Knowledge - Vice & Virtue - Happiness - Fate & Destiny - Adversity - Power - Death & Dying - Fear - Anger - Truth - War & Peace - View All Lucius Annaeus Seneca Quotations

    Related Authors


    Tony Blair - Solon - Nikita Khrushchev - Madeleine Albright - Jacques Chirac - Ehud Barak - Ayatollah Khamenei - Aga Khan III - Abdurrahman Wahid - Augusto Pinochet


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections