Seneca

Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order.

What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it.

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.

When I think over what I have said I envy dumb people.

If you are surprised at the number of our maladies count our cooks.

Night brings our troubles to the light rather than banishes them.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Revenge is an inhuman word.

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 as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is.

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 will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the applause of the populace. Just as it was started on its first day, so it will run; nowhere will it turn aside, nowhere will it delay.

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

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

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

To expel hunger and thirst there is no necessity of sitting in a palace and submitting to the supercilious brow and contumelious favour of the rich and great there is no necessity of sailing upon the deep or of following the camp What nature wants is every where to be found and attainable without much difficulty whereas require the sweat of the brow for these we are obliged to dress anew j compelled to grow old in the field and driven to foreign mores A sufficiency is always at hand

...certain people have good, ordinary blood and others have an animated, lively sort of blood that comes to the face quickly.

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 of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name.