Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Senecawas a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionStatesman
affairs fate rules
Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.
along fate leads
Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.
cannot escape overcome
You cannot escape necessities, but you can overcome them.
equal strive
To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.
hard suffer suffering sweet
What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember.
body disease
Disease is not of the body but of the place.
cute-love love sweet-love true whom
Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding.
bear hard memory sweet
Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.
fools-and-foolishness hatred inflicted
A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.
age-and-aging among declining embrace extreme gradually love maintain pleasure reached sweetest
As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.
authority founded injustice
Authority founded on injustice is never of long duration.
bent cares hungry justice listens nor people prayers
A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers
behind self-knowledge sins
Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs.
amiable ancestry born unless
No one is better born than another, unless they are born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition.