Famous Quotations / Quotes
Famous Quotes about Liberty
 

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A sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
What is freedom? It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any restraint, to any chance.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
No man is free who is a slave to the flesh. [Lat., Nemo liber est, qui corpori servit.]
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in which we lay before we were born. If anyone pities the dead, he ought also to pity those who have not been born. Death is neither a good nor a bad thing, for that alone which is something can be a good or a bad thing: but that which is nothing, and reduces all things to nothing, does not hand us over to either fortune, because good and bad require some material to work upon. Fortune cannot take ahold of that which Nature has let go, nor can a man be unhappy if he is nothing.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
It would be some consolation for the feebleness of ourselves and our works, if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Growth is slow but collapse is rapid.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Nothing lasts forever, few things even last for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another; moreover all that begins also ends.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A great fortune is a great slavery.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Who profits by a sin has done the sin.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Unjust rule never abides continually.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Who can be forced has not learned how to die.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Who vaunts his race, lauds what belongs to others.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Things ’twas hard to bear ’tis pleasant to recall.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Worse than war is the very fear of war.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Arms observe no bounds; nor can the wrath of the sword, once drawn, be easily checked or stayed; war delights in blood.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Unrighteous fortune seldom spares the highest worth; no one with safety can long front so frequent perils. Whom calamity oft passes by she finds at last.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Tis the upright mind that holds true sovereignty.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Impurity is caused by attitude, not events.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
He who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
'Tis the first art of kings, the power to suffer hate.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
All art is but imitation of nature.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
What," say you, "are you giving me advice? Indeed, have you already advised yourself, already corrected your own faults? Is this the reason why you have leisure to reform other men?" No, I am not so shameless as to undertake to cure my fellow-men when I am ill myself. I am, however, discussing with you troubles which concern us both, and sharing the remedy with you, just as if we were lying ill in the same hospital.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chreia, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them. For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion? How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember. Put forth something from your own stock.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
It is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
For love of bustle is not industry – it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A golden bit does not make a better horse.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Don't ask for what you'll wish you hadn't got.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
My master Attalus used to say: "Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison." The poison which serpents carry for the destruction of others, and secrete without harm to themselves, is not like this poison; for this sort is ruinous to the possessor.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
What fools these mortals be!
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
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.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Not lost, but gone before.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Friendship is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
The best ideas are common property.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Besides, he who follows another not only discovers nothing but is not even investigating.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much-vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? There are no limits to our greed, none to our cruelty. And as long as such crimes are committed by stealth and by individuals, they are less harmful and less portentous; but cruelties are practised in accordance with acts of senate and popular assembly, and the public is bidden to do that which is forbidden to the individual. Deeds that would be punished by loss of life when committed in secret, are praised by us because uniformed generals have carried them out. Man, naturally the gentlest class of being, is not ashamed to revel in the blood of others, to wage war, and to entrust the waging of war to his sons, when even dumb beasts and wild beasts keep the peace with one another. Against this overmastering and widespread madness philosophy has become a matter of greater effort, and has taken on strength in proportion to the strength which is gained by the opposition forces.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
That most knowing of persons – gossip.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
The shortest way to wealth is through the contempt of wealth.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Just as we suffer from excess in all things, so we suffer from excess in literature; thus we learn our lessons, not for life, but for the lecture room.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Who is everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies. It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
You are doing an excellent thing, one which will be wholesome for you, if, as you write me, you are persisting in your effort to attain sound understanding; it is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. A god is near you, with you, and in you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: there sits a holy spirit within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our a guardian.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 


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