Seneca Quotes: 100+ Stoic Lessons for Inner Peace and Strength
Seneca Quotes
100+ Authentic Lessons in Timeless Stoic Wisdom
Explore over 100+ authentic Seneca quotes, and let these timeless lessons in Stoic wisdom inspire you. Every quote is linked to in-depth commentary on our Via Stoica blog.
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Seneca left us the largest surviving body of Stoic texts, offering deep insights into life, time, control, and virtue. Alongside Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Musonius Rufus, he shaped the core of Stoic philosophy. Many of the most quoted Stoic lines come directly from his works. Read a short biography on Seneca here.
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Learn more about the quotes
🎙️ Listen to this Via Stoica Podcast episode where we explore one of Seneca’s most profound insights:
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
This episode is part of our growing Stoic Quote series, where we reflect on the meaning and practice behind Stoic lines like this one.
👇 Continue to our full list of Seneca quotes below.
Seneca Quotes
“The wise man is content with himself.”
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter IX
Post: On Being Content with Yourself, How to Find Your Purpose Through Stoicism, Five Stoic Quotes to Change Your Life, How to Be Content with Yourself, The Stoic View on Friendship
“…we say the wise man is self-content; he is so in the sense that he is able to do without friends, not that he desires to do without them.”
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter IX
Post: On Being Content with Yourself, Five Stoic Quotes to Change Your Life, How to Be Confident Like a Stoic, What is Autarkeia?, Stoicism for Relationships, Spending the Holidays Alone
“It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On Providence, 2
Post: On Dealing With Loss, How to Handle Adversity with Stoicism
Life as an Act of Courage
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter LXXVIII
Post: What is Courage?, How to Find Courage in Everyday Life
“Whatever fate one man can strike can come to all of us alike.”
Publius, From Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Marcia, 9
Post: On Why Me, Dialogues and Essays – Seneca, The Stoic Investor, A Stoic View on Fate
“It is not that we have a brief length of time to live, but that we squander a great deal of that time.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Shortness of Life,1
Post: What is Temperance, 10 Seneca Quotes on Time, 10 Seneca Quotes on Death, How to Practice Memento Mori, How to Reclaim Your Time
“Life, it is thanks to death that you are precious in my eyes.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Marcia, 20
Post: What is Stoicism, Why Death Needs Rebranding, The Stoic View on the Value of Life, 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
Seneca’s quote on the length of Life
“Life is long, if only you knew how to use it.”
Seneca, Dialogues, On the Shortness of life, 2
Post: On Having Regrets, Dialogues and Essays – Seneca, 10 Seneca Quotes on Time, Seneca Quote on the Shortness of Life, 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
“You are unfortunate in my judgement, for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through life with no antagonist; no one will know what you were capable of, not even yourself.”
Seneca, Dialogues, On Providence, 4
Post: What is Privilege?, How to Become More Stoic, Seneca Quote on Adversity, Stoic Habits for Modern Life
“How nice it is to have out-worn one’s desires and left them behind.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XII
Post: On Change, How to Let Go of Desire in Stoicism
“Greed is satisfied by nothing, but nature finds satisfaction even in scant measures.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Helvia, 10
Post: Become Financially Independent Through Stoicism, How to be Satisfied with Less
“But since the first essential is not to become angry, the second to cease being angry, and the third to cure also anger in others.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On Anger, 5
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism, 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger, The Stoic Cure For Anger
“Indifferent to great endeavors.”
Reference to Aristotle by Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On anger, 3
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism, How to Approach Ambition Like a Stoic
“So, tell me, will someone call a man sane who, as if caught up in a tempest, does not walk but is driven along, and takes as his master a furious demon…?”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On Anger, 3
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism, How Stoics Control Anger
“It makes havoc of the resolutions essential to virtue achieving anything.”
Seneca, Dialogues and essays, On Anger, 3
Post: How to Control Anger Through Stoicism, A Stoic Approach to Anger
Why weep at parts of life?
“What is the need to weep at parts of life? All life is worthy of our tears: Fresh problems will press upon you before you have done with the old ones.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Marcia, 11
Post: Why we need a Philosophy of life, The Stoic Perspective on Life’s Difficulties
“How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XXVIII
Post: Why we need a Philosophy of life, Why We Travel, What Does Home Mean?, The Stoic Approach to Escapism
“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter CIV
Post: Why We Travel, Stoic Escape from Suffering
“You are running away in your own company.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XXVIII
Post: Why We Travel, Stoicism on Escapism
“Away with the world’s opinion of you – it’s always unsettled and divided.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XXVI
Post: How to Deal with Criticism Through Stoicism, How to Stop Caring What Others Think
“For the wise man regards wealth as a slave, the fool as a master, the wise man accords no importance to wealth, but in your eyes wealth is everything.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Happy Life, 26
Post: Budgeting like a Stoic: How to save more money, The Stoic View on Wealth
Seneca on how to be Rich
“If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XVI
Post: Budgeting like a Stoic: How to save more money, Stoic Philosophy on Wealth
“Where money is concerned, the ideal amount is one that does not fall into poverty and yet is not far removed from poverty.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Tranquillity of the Mind, 8
Post: Budgeting like a Stoic: How to save more money, Stoicism on Money and Poverty
“But this is the result of an excessive lack of self-control and blind love for some commodity; for when a man seeks bad things instead of good it is dangerous for him to attain his ambitions.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Happy Life, 14
Post: How to Resist Temptations Like a Stoic: Taming Dubai, Self-Control in Stoicism
“The more and greater the pleasures are, the more inferior is that man the crowd calls happy, the greater is the number of masters he has to serve.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Happy Life, 14
Post: How to Resist Temptations Like a Stoic: Taming Dubai, Seneca on Pleasure and Freedom
“Besides, a man who follows someone else not only does not find anything, he is not even looking.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XXXIII
Post: The Collective Existential Crisis, How to Think for Yourself Like a Stoic
“I propose to value them according to their character, not their jobs.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XLVII
Post: How to Find Your Purpose Through Stoicism
“I say that wealth is not a good; for if it was, it would make men good; as it is, since something that is found among wicked men cannot be called good, I deny it this name. But that it is desirable, that it is useful and confers great benefit on life, I do admit.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Happy Life, 24
Post: Investing Like a Stoic, The Stoic Investor
“You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter II
Post: Investing Like a Stoic
“Such things should be despised, not to stop himself having them, but to avoid worry when he does have them; He does not drive them away, but accompanies them to the door, if they leave him, as an untroubled host.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Happy Life, 21
Post: Investing Like a Stoic
“Wealth is not a good.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On Providence, 5
Post: Investing Like a Stoic
“For this reason it is better to conquer our sadness than to deceive it; for once it has departed, seduced by pleasures or engrossing pursuits, it rises up again and gathers fresh momentum for its fury from its very rest; but angry grief that has yielded to reason is laid to rest for ever.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Helvia, 17
Post: How to Act Like a Stoic, How to deal with you emotions like a Stoic
“You ask me to say what you should consider it particularly important to avoid. My answer is this: a mass crowd. It is something to which you cannot entrust yourself yet without risk. I at any rate am ready to confess my own frailty in this respect.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter VII
“Men learn as they teach.”
“Retire into yourself as much as you can. Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one: Men learn as they teach.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter VII
Post: How to Deal With Peer Pressure
“A few is enough for me; so is one; and so is none.”
Unknown person quoted by Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter VII
Post: How to Deal With Peer Pressure
“Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don’t do one any harm, they’re fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter XXVII
Post: How to Enjoy Life as a Stoic
“I find some people who say that a certain restlessness dwells naturally in the hearts of men, prompting them to change their dwelling-places and find new homes; for man has been given an inconstant and restless mind that lingers nowhere, but travels far and wide, dispatching its thoughts to all place known and unknown, roving, intolerant of rest, and delighting in new environments.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Helvia, 6
Post: What Does Home Mean?
“Two most beautiful things will follow us wherever we go, universal nature and our own virtue. This, believe me, was the will of the great creator of the universe, whoever he was, whether a god with power over all, or incorporeal reason, the designer of mighty works, or a divine spirit permeating all things great and small with equal energy, or fate and an unchangeable sequence of causes that cling one to another; this, I say, was his will, in order that only the most trivial of our possessions should fall under the control of another. All that is of the greatest worth for a man lies outside the power of his fellow men, and can neither be given or taken away.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Helvia, 8
Post: What Does Home Mean?
“And so, eagerly, with heads high and unfaltering steps, let us hasten wherever circumstances take us, let us traverse each and every land: no place of exile can be found within the universe, for nothing within the universe is foreign to man.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Helvia, 8
Post: What Does Home Mean?
“When one has lost a friend one’s eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but no lamentation.”
Seneca, Letters From a Stoic, Letter LXIII
Post: What is Temperance
“If you grieve for your son’s death, it is an accusation of the time when he was born; for at birth his death was proclaimed; into this condition he was fathered, this was the fate that accompanied him immediately from the womb.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Marcia, 10
Seneca’s quote on Suffering in Imagination
“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca, Moral letter to Lucilius, Book 2, Letter 13.4
Post: How to Deal with Fear Like a Stoic, Five Stoic Quotes to Change Your Life, A Stoic Practice for Overthinking
“But virtue only comes to a character which has been thoroughly schooled and trained and brought to a pitch of perfection by unremitting practice. We are born for it, but not with it. And even in the best of people, until you cultivate it there is only the material for virtue, not virtue itself.”
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter XC
Post: How to Forgive Like a Stoic
“Before anything it is imperative that a man reaches an estimate of himself, because generally we suppose ourselves to be capable of more than we are.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Tranquillity of the Mind, 6
Post: How to Increase Your Self-Awareness
“We must next evaluate what we propose to undertake, and compare our strength with the tasks we intend to attempt.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Tranquillity of the Mind, 6
Post: How to Increase Your Self-Awareness
“This is why we say that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectations: we exempt him, not from the accidents, but the blunders that befall men, and everything turns out for him, not as he wished, but as he thought.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Tranquillity of the Mind, 13
Post: What Does Home Mean?
“And so, eagerly, with heads high and unfaltering steps, let us hasten wherever circumstances take us, let us traverse each and every land: no place of exile can be found within the universe, for nothing within the universe is foreign to man.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, Consolation to Helvia, 8
Post: How to Manage Expectations Like a Stoic
“For the man who busies himself in many things often gives Fortune power over him, and the safest course is to tempt her only rarely but always to keep her in one’s thoughts, never placing any trust in her promises but saying instead: ‘I will make the voyage unless something happens,’ and ‘I will become praetor unless something stands in my way, and ‘My business venture will succeed unless something interferes.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Tranquillity of the Mind, 13
Post: How to Manage Expectations Like a Stoic, How to Practice the Stoic Reserve Clause
“At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is a whole.”
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter LXXVII
Post: Death and Stoicism: A Peaceful Acceptance
“Remaining dry and sober takes a good deal more strength of will when everyone about one is puking drunk.”
Seneca, Letter From A Stoic, Letter XVIII
Post: How to Become and Stay Sober, Who to Associate With
“We should live with the conviction: ‘I wasn’t born for one particular corner: The whole world’s my home country.”
Seneca, Letter from a Stoic, Letter XXVIII
Post: How to Travel Using Stoicism
“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?’”
Seneca, Moral Letters, Letter 18.5
Post: How to Become More Stoic, Stoic Habits for Modern Life
Seneca Quotes on Time
“Men are tight-fisted in keeping control of their fortunes, but when it comes to the matter of wasting time, they are positively extravagant in the one area where there is honour in being miserly.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 3
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 1.2
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 8
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“You fear everything as mortals but desire to have everything as gods.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 3
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“The greatest obstacle to living is expectation, which depends on tomorrow and wastes today.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 9
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“Present time is very short, so short, indeed, that some people think there is none.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 10
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“For it is constantly on the move, like a rushing river; it ceases to exist before it has arrived, and no more tolerates delay than the heavens or the stars, whose ever-restless motion never lets them remain in the same track.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 10
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“You live as though you were going to live for ever, at no time taking thought for your weakness.”
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 4
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 17.10
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Time
Seneca quotes on Anger
“Anger is a brief madness.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 1, Section 1
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“No pestilence has been more costly for the human race.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 1, Section 2
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“Greatness of spirit, as I understand it, is unshaken, solid through and through, balanced and stable from its base on up, the sort of thing that bad natures cannot contain.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 2, Section 20
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“Anger has this particular evil trait: it is unwilling to be controlled.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 1, Section 19
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“The greatest cure for anger is delay.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 2, Section 29
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“The best course is to reject straightaway the initial prickings of anger, to fight against its first sparks, and to struggle not to succumb to it.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 1, Section 8
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“To avoid being angry with individuals, you must pardon the whole mass; you must grant forgiveness to the entire human race.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 2, Section 10
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“If we want to be fair judges in all matters, let us convince ourselves that none of us is without fault.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 2, Section 28
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“It is the mark of a great spirit to regard wrongs as beneath contempt.”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 2, Section 32
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“How much better it is to heal an injury than to avenge it!”
Seneca, On Anger, Book 3, Section 27
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Anger
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 71.3
Post: Stoic Guidance on Finding Direction
“True happiness, therefore, resides in virtue.”
Seneca, On the Happy Life, Chapter 16
Seneca Quotes Death
“Let us so order our minds as if we had come to the very end. Let us postpone nothing.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 101.7
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
“We do not fear death; we fear the thought of death. For death itself is always the same distance from us.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 30.17
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
“He who has learned to die has unlearned slavery.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 26.10
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death, How to Practice Memento Mori
“What is death? It is either the end, or a process of change. I have no fear of ceasing to exist; it is the same as not having begun.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 65.24
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death, How to Practice Memento Mori
“He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live. For life is granted to us with the reservation that we shall die; to this end our path leads.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 30.10
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
“We do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 24.20
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
“You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 78.6
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Death
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca, Moral Letter to Lucilius, Book 2, Letter 13.4
Post: What is Pathos?, Stoicism for Anxiety, Stoicism For Overthinking
“No school is more kind and gentle, none more loving of mankind and more devoted to the common good, so that its guiding principle is to be useful and helpful, and to consider not merely self-interest but that of each and every person on earth.”
Seneca, On Clemency 2.5
Post: Core Stoic Beliefs
“The happy life is one that is in harmony with its own nature.”
Seneca, On The Happy Life, 3
Post: What is Eupatheia?
“When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 3.2
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 3.3
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 3.2
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 7.8
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship, The Stoic View on Friendship
“He who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 9.8
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“The wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 9.3
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“A friend should be retained in the spirit; such a friend can never be absent.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 55.11
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“You must live for your neighbour, if you would live for yourself.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 48.2
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 6.4
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“Nothing, however, delights the mind as much as loving and loyal friendship. How great a blessing it is to have those whose hearts are ready to receive every secret in confidence, whose knowledge of you causes you less fear than your knowledge of yourself, whose conversation relieves your anxiety, whose opinion facilitates your decision.”
Seneca, On the Tranquility of the Mind, 7
Post: 10 Seneca Quotes on Friendship
“We never wait for absolute certainty, since discovery of the truth is arduous, but we follow what is likely to be true. This is the path we follow in accomplishing all our tasks… We follow where reason, not truth, has taken us.”
Seneca, On Benefits, Book 4, Chapter 33.2
Post: How to Practice the Stoic Discipline of Action
“The power of the mind resides in being unconquerable, experienced in life, calm in action, and possessed of much kindness and concern for those with whom it has dealings.”
Seneca, On the Happy Life, 4
Post: What is Ataraxia?
“Praecogitati mali mollis ictus venit.” “If an evil has been pondered beforehand, the blow is gentle when it comes.”
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, 76.34 (Loeb Vol. II)
Post: How to Practice Premeditatio Malorum?
“The soul, imprisoned as it has been in this gloomy and darkened house, seeks the open sky whenever it can, and in the contemplation of the universe finds rest.”
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter 65.17
Post: How to Practice the Stoic View From Above
“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?’ It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence.”
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 18.5–6
Post: How to Practice Stoic Voluntary Discomfort
“He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.”
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 5.6
Post: How to Practice Stoic Voluntary Discomfort
“For we must employ Nature as our guide; it is she whom reason looks to, she whose counsel it takes. It is therefore one and the same thing to live happily and to live in accordance with nature.”
Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, On the Happy Life, 8
Post: What Is a Stoic Mindset?
“Conduct will not be right unless the will to act is right; for this is the source of conduct. Nor, again, can the will be right without a right attitude of mind; for this is the source of the will.”
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 95.57
