Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one’s life in order to amuse oneself.
Since the things we do determine the character of life, no blessed person can become unhappy. For he will never do those things which are hateful and petty.
A vivid image compels the whole body to follow.
This body is not a home, but an inn; and that only for a short time. Seneca Friendship is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
Our characters are the result of our conduct.
So virtue is a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it. It is a mean between two kinds of vice, one of excess and the other of deficiency...
Between friends there is no need for justice, but people who are just still need the quality of friendship; and indeed friendliness is considered to be justice in the fullest sense.
Happiness, then, is co-extensive with contemplation, and the more people contemplate, the happier they are; not incidentally, but in virtue of their contemplation, because it is in itself precious. Thus happiness is a form of contemplation.
It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done.
Men in general desire the good and not merely what their fathers had.
Being a father is the most rewarding thing a man whose career has plateaued can do.
Of the tyrant, spies and informers are the principal instruments. War is his favorite occupation, for the sake of engrossing the attention of the people, and making himself necessary to them as their leader.
Those that deem politics beneath their dignity are doomed to be governed by those of lesser talents.
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.
Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain.
There is more both of beauty and of raison d’etre in the works of nature- than in those of art.
Those whose days are consumed in the low pursuits of avarice, or the gaudy frivolties of fashion, unobservant of nature’s lovelinessof demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.
Pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.
Conscientious and careful physicians allocate causes of disease to natural laws, while the ablest scientists go back to medicine for their first principles.