Seneca

But is life really worth so much? Let us examine this; it's a different inquiry. We will offer no solace for so desolate a prison house; we will encourage no one to endure the overlordship of butchers. We shall rather show that in every kind of slavery, the road of freedom lies open. I will say to the man to whom it befell to have a king shoot arrows at his dear ones [Prexaspes], and to him whose master makes fathers banquet on their sons' guts [Harpagus]: 'What are you groaning for, fool?... Everywhere you look you find an end to your sufferings. You see that steep drop-off? It leads down to freedom. You see that ocean, that river, that well? Freedom lies at its bottom. You see that short, shriveled, bare tree? Freedom hangs from it.... You ask, what is the path to freedom? Any vein in your body.

He who is brave is free

How closely flattery resembles friendship! It not only apes friendship, but outdoes it, passing it in the race; with wide-open and indulgent ears it is welcomed and sinks to the depths of the heart, and it is pleasing precisely wherein it does harm.

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

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with

f you wish to put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen is certainly going to happen.

distringit librorum multitudo (the abundance of books is distraction)

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

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

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

It's not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.

The part of life we really live is small.' For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

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

If anyone says that the best life of all is to sail the sea, and then adds that I must not sail upon a sea where shipwrecks are a common occurrence and there are often sudden storms that sweep the helmsman in an adverse direction, I conclude that this man, although he lauds navigation, really forbids me to launch my ship.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

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

Friendship always benefits love sometimes injures.