Statesman · Roman · 179 quotes
I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Statesman · Roman
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.
He who has great power should use it lightly.
Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.
A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
He that does good to another does good also to himself.
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.
The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.
The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.
To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.
Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.
He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.
There is no delight in owning anything unshared.
Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.
Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.
He has committed the crime who profits by it.
In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.
Every reign must submit to a greater reign.
Every sin is the result of a collaboration.
A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.
No one is laughable who laughs at himself.
Whatever is well said by another, is mine.
No man was ever wise by chance.
One crime has to be concealed by another.
No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.
Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.
Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.
Love in its essence is spiritual fire.
We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.
Where fear is, happiness is not.
A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.
It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
In war there is no prize for runner-up.
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
A great mind becomes a great fortune.
Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?
