Seneca Quotes on Time, Adversity, and Daily Life
Seneca was a Roman statesman who wrote about time, trouble, friendship, and anger. These passages come from his Letters to Lucilius and his essays.
Seneca quotes on time
Seneca asks where our days actually go.
Thus it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one, and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them.
Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s.
Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.
Seneca quotes on adversity
To Seneca, trouble tests the habits you built before it came.
You are a great man; but how am I to know it, if fortune gives you no opportunity of showing your virtue?
There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.
Letters to Lucilius quotes about putting ideas to work
Seneca wanted reading to change how you live.
Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show. It is a matter, not of words, but of facts.
Prove your words by your deeds.
You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.
Friendship and sorrow
When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.
Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.
Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow. We may weep, but we must not wail.
Joy, rest, and a change of scene
Above all, my dear Lucilius, make this your business: learn how to feel joy.
You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.
Neither ought we always to keep the mind strained to the same pitch, but it ought sometimes to be relaxed by amusement.
Anger and the daily review
Seneca asks us to judge our own conduct as closely as we judge other people's.
The spirit ought to be brought up for examination daily.
If you want to find out the truth about anything, commit the task to time: nothing can be accurately discerned at a time of disturbance.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
Questions
What does Seneca say about time?
He calls time the one thing we own. In Letter 1.2, he urges Lucilius to attend to today's task; On the Shortness of Life argues that we make life short by wasting it.
What are the Letters to Lucilius?
They are moral letters Seneca addressed to Lucilius on friendship, fear, wealth, death, and daily life. A reference like 7.8 means Letter 7, section 8.
Which translations are used for these Seneca quotes?
The letters use Richard M. Gummere's translation (1917–1925), and the essays use Aubrey Stewart's (1889).
Did Seneca say luck is preparation meeting opportunity?
No passage in Seneca says this, and the line was in print before anyone credited it to him. See the misattributed lines on our Stoic quotes page.
Are On the Shortness of Life and Letters from a Stoic the same book?
No. On the Shortness of Life is an essay addressed to Paulinus. Letters from a Stoic is an English title for a selection of the letters to Lucilius.
Translations are by Aubrey Stewart and Richard M. Gummere, and are in the public domain.