…it is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.

Because thou writest me often, I thank thee … Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.

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

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

Once you have rid yourself of the affliction there, though, every change of scene will become a pleasure. You may be banished to the ends of the earth, and yet in whatever outlandish corner of...

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity

Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; … in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is...

For fate the willing leads, the unwilling drags along.

But nothing will help quite so much as just keeping quiet, talking with other people as little as possible, with yourself as much as possible. For conversation has a kind of charm about it, an...

I am not a ‘wise man,’ nor . . . shall I ever be. And so require not from me that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than...

It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and–what will perhaps make you wonder more–it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

No one could endure lasting adversity if it continued to have the same force as when it first hit us. We are all tied to Fortune, some by a loose and golden chain, and others...

Timendi causa est nescire – Ignorance is the cause of fear.

Possession of a friend should be with the spirit: the spirit’s never absent: it sees daily whoever it likes.

The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.

And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price...

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy. Their continual attention to others behavior shows how they are boring.

Oh, what darkness does great prosperity cast over our minds!

And this, too, affords no small occasion for anxieties – if you are bent on assuming a pose and never reveal yourself to anyone frankly, in the fashion of many who live a false life...

Huius (sapientis) opus unum est de divinis humanisque verum invenire; ab hac numquam recedit religio, pietas, iustitia …

Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

To expect punishment is to suffer it; and to earn it is to expect it.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

A person’s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

However much you possess there’s someone else who has more, and you’ll be fancying yourself to be short of things you need to exact extent to which you lag behind him.

Life will follow the path it started upon, and will neither reverse nor check its course; it will make no noise, it will not remind you of its swiftness. Silent it will glide on; it...

that you would not anticipate misery since the evils you dread as coming upon you may perhaps never reach you at least they are not yet come Thus some things torture us more than they...

The road is long if one proceeds by way of precepts but short and effectual if by way of personal example.

Maximum remedium est irae mora.

So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long. For suppose you should think that a man had had...

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...

Away with the world’s opinion of you – it’s always unsettled and divided. Away with the pursuits that have occupied the whole of your life – death is going to deliver the verdict in your...

The world you see, nature’s greatest and most glorious creation, and the human mind which gazes and wonders at it, and is the most splendid part of it, these are our own everlasting possessions and...

In truth, Serenus, I have for a long time been silently asking myself to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I can find nothing that so closely approaches it as the...

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

How many men soever you slay, you will never kill your successor.

The willing, Destiny guides them. The unwilling, Destiny drags them.

Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.

Here is your great soul —the man who has given himself over to Fate; on the other hand, that man is a weakling and a degenerate who struggles and maligns the order of the universe...

Most powerful is he who has himself in his power.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Only a mind that is deeply stirred can utter something noble and beyond the power of others.

For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast – a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the...

And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles, he has not lived long – he has existed long. For what...

So let those people go on weeping and wailing whose self-indulgent minds have been weakened by long prosperity, let them collapse at the threat of the most trivial injuries; but let those who have spent...

It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

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