Sénèque citations Page 5

“La mauvaise Fortune ne brise que celui que la bonne Fortune a aveuglé.”

Consolation à Marcia (Ad Marciam de consolatione)

“Si un grand homme tombe, c'est un grand homme qui est à terre et je dirai qu'on ne le méprise pas plus qu'on ne piétine les ruines d'un temple consacré que les personnes pieuses révèrent tout autant que si les murs étaient encore debout.”

Consolation à ma mère Helva (Ad Helviam matrem de consolatione)

“Il doit nécessairement craindre beaucoup, celui qui est craint de beaucoup.”

Consolation à ma mère Helva (Ad Helviam matrem de consolatione)

“[…] un malheur n'a jamais que l'importance que nous lui accordons.”

Sénèque Citations

“Les destins conduisent celui qui veut, ils traînent celui qui ne veut pas.”

Consolation à Marcia (Ad Marciam de consolatione)

“Personne ne meurt trop tôt puisque personne n'était destiné à vivre plus longtemps qu'il n'a vécu.”

“Là où il n'y a plus d'amélioration possible, le déclin est proche.”

Consolation à Marcia (Ad Marciam de consolatione)

“Quand tu auras désappris à espérer, je t'apprendrai à vouloir.”

Consolation à Marcia (Ad Marciam de consolatione)

“Si on nous donnait le choix entre ne pas être longtemps heureux et ne jamais l'être, mieux vaudrait un bonheur prêt à s'envoler que pas de bonheur du tout.”

“On n'est jamais méprisé par autrui que si on commence par se mépriser soi-même.”

Consolation à Marcia (Ad Marciam de consolatione)

“La véritable joie est une chose sérieuse.”

Consolation à ma mère Helva (Ad Helviam matrem de consolatione)

Sénèque livre Lettres à Lucilius

Lettres à Lucilius (Epistulae morales ad Lucilium)

“Ce serait une sorte de consolation pour notre fragilité comme pour celle des choses qui nous touchent, si tout était aussi lent à périr qu’à croître; mais le progrès veut du temps pour se développer : la chute vient au pas de course.”

“La croissance est lente, mais la chute est rapide.”

“You see that man can endure toil: Cato, on foot, led an army through African deserts. You see that thirst can be endured: he marched over sun-baked hills, dragging the remains of a beaten army and with no train of supplies, undergoing lack of water and wearing a heavy suit of armour; always the last to drink of the few springs which they chanced to find. You see that honour, and dishonour too, can be despised: for they report that on the very day when Cato was defeated at the elections, he played a game of ball. You see also that man can be free from fear of those above him in rank: for Cato attacked Caesar and Pompey simultaneously, at a time when none dared fall foul of the one without endeavouring to oblige the other. You see that death can be scorned as well as exile: Cato inflicted exile upon himself and finally death, and war all the while.”

Sénèque: Citations en anglais

“No one ever saw Cato change, no matter how often the state changed: he kept himself the same in all circumstances—in the praetorship, in defeat, under accusation, in his province, on the platform, in the army, in death.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“Do you desire another case? Take that of the younger Marcus Cato, with whom Fortune dealt in a more hostile and more persistent fashion. But he withstood her, on all occasions, and in his last moments, at the point of death, showed that a brave man can live in spite of Fortune, can die in spite of her. His whole life was passed either in civil warfare, or under a political regime which was soon to breed civil war.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“He maintained this attitude up to the very end, and no man ever saw Socrates too much elated or too much depressed. Amid all the disturbance of Fortune, he was undisturbed.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“This spirit thrusts itself forward, confident of commendation and esteem.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“Or, if you enjoy living with Greeks also, spend your time with Socrates and with Zeno: the former will show you how to die if it be necessary; the latter how to die before it is necessary. Live with Chrysippus, with Posidonius: they will make you acquainted with things earthly and things heavenly; they will bid you work hard over something more than neat turns of language and phrases mouthed forth for the entertainment of listeners; they will bid you be stout of heart and rise superior to threats. The only harbour safe from the seething storms of this life is scorn of the future, a firm stand, a readiness to receive Fortune’s missiles full in the breast, neither skulking nor turning the back.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“New friends, however, will not be the same.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“What profit is there in crossing the sea and in going from one city to another? If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality. Perhaps you have reached Athens, or perhaps Rhodes; choose any state you fancy, how does it matter what its character may be? You will be bringing to it your own.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

No, nor will you yourself remain the same; you change with every day and every hour.
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind

“Accept in an unruffled spirit that which is inevitable.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CI: On the Futility of Planning Ahead

“Of all these experiences that seem so frightful, none is insuperable. Separate trials have been over- come by many: fire by Mucius, crucifixion by Regulus, poison by Socrates, exile by Rutilius, and a sword-inflicted death by Cato; therefore, let us also overcome something.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCVIX: On Consolation to the Bereaved

“For this reason those who are tossed about at sea, who proceed uphill and downhill over toilsome crags and heights, who go on campaigns that bring the greatest danger, are heroes and front-rank fighters; but persons who live in rotten luxury and ease while others toil, are mere turtle-doves safe only because men despise them.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCVIII: On the Fickleness of Fortune

“That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCVI

“A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and gold dwells slavery.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCII: On the Happy Life

“So the wise man will develop virtue, if he may, in the midst of wealth, or, if not, in poverty; if possible, in his own country—if not, in exile; if possible, as a commander—if not, as a common soldier; if possible, in sound health—if not, enfeebled. Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XC: On the Part Played by Philosophy in the Progress of Man

“Thus no fortune, no external circumstance, can shut off the wise man from action. For the very thing which engages his attention prevents him from attending to other things. He is ready for either outcome: if it brings goods, he controls them; if evils, he conquers them.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

“But he has no fear; unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

“Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXV: On Some Vain Syllogisms

“Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all—the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

“No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, who loves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurable or short.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

“You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive; even when you have been cured, thesame end awaits you; when you have recovered, it will be not death, but ill health, that you have escaped.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

“What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner? The light of the sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light?”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

“Would you not think him an utter fool who wept because he was not alive a thousand years ago? And is he not just as much of a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is all the same; you will not be, and you were not. Neither of these periods of time belongs to you.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life

“But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVII: On Taking One’s Own Life

“Do you ask me whom I have conquered? Neither the Persians, nor the far-off Medes, nor any warlike race that lies beyond the Dahae; not these, but greed, ambition, and the fear of death that has conquered the conquerors of the world.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXIV: On Virtue as a Refuge From Worldly Distractions

“These actions are not essentially difficult; it is we ourselves that are soft and flabby.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXI: On the supreme good

“Why should I not regard this as desirable—not because the fire, burns me, but because it does not overcome me?”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXI: On the supreme good

“I should prefer that Fortune keep me in her camp rather than in the lap of luxury. If I am tortured, but bear it bravely, all is well; if I die, but die bravely, it is also well.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

“Clothe yourself with a hero’s courage, and withdraw for a little space from the opinions of the common man. Form a proper conception of the image of virtue, a thing of exceeding beauty and grandeur; this image is not to be worshipped by us with incense or garlands, but with sweat and blood.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering

“Now a life of honour includes various kinds of conduct; it may include the chest in which Regulus was confined, or the wound of Cato which was torn open by Cato’s own hand, or the exile of Rutilius, or the cup of poison which removed Socrates from gaol to heaven.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVII: On Ill-Health and Endurance of Suffering