.png){kind=small}
Seneca was a Roman philosopher born around 4 BCE. He is known for his writings on Stoicism, emphasizing the importance of virtue, reason, and self-control. Seneca's works, including letters and essays, have had a lasting impact on philosophy and ethics. He served as an advisor to Emperor Nero and faced challenges in his political life. Seneca's teachings continue to be studied and respected for their insights into human nature and morality.
"You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last."
"If you are surprised at the number of our maladies count our cooks."
"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."
"No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity."
"If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable."
"It takes all of our life to learn how to live, and " something that may surprise you more " it takes just as long to learn how to die."
"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."
"Philosophers have come to envy the philologist and the mathematician, and they have taken over all the inessential elements in those studies-with the result that they know more about devoting care and attention to their speech than about devoting such attention to their lives."
"Life is divided into three parts: what was, what is and what shall be. Of these three periods, the present is short, the future is doubtful and the past alone is certain."
"A guilty person sometimes has the luck to escape detection, but never to feel sure of it."
"All outdoors may be bedlam, provided there is no disturbance within."
"The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way."
"What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself."
"Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum: 'to err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical."