Sénèque citations Page 6

“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.”

“I should prefer to be free from torture; but if the time comes when it must be endured, I shall desire that I may conduct myself therein with bravery, honour, and courage. Of course I prefer that war should not occur; but if war does occur, I shall desire that I may nobly endure the wounds, the starvation, and all that the exigency of war brings. Nor am I so mad as to crave illness; but if I must suffer illness, I shall desire that I may do nothing which shows lack of restraint, and nothing that is unmanly. The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships.”

Sénèque: Citations en anglais

“I cannot help believing that Mucius was all the more lucky because he manipulated the flames as calmly as if he were holding out his hand to the manipulator. He had wiped out all his previous mistakes; he finished the war unarmed and maimed; and with that stump of a hand he conquered two kings.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

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

“There stood Mucius, despising the enemy and despising the fire, and watched his hand as it dripped blood over the fire on his enemy’s altar, until Porsenna, envying the fame of the hero whose punishment he was advocating, ordered the fire to be removed against the will of the victim.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

“Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one’s way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

“Great also are the souls of the defenders—men who know that, as long as the path to death lies open, the blockade is not complete, men who breathe their last in the arms of liberty.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

“But the wise man is fortified against all inroads; he is alert; he will not retreat before the attack of poverty, or of sorrow, or of disgrace, or of pain. He will walk undaunted both against them and among them.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

“For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself?”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LIX: On Pleasure and Joy

“Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter L: On Our Blindness and Its Cure

“I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties. Each man acquires his character for himself, but accident assigns his duties.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLVII: On master and slave

“At any rate, if you wish to sift doubtful meanings of this kind, teach us that the happy man is not he whom the crowd deems happy, namely, he into whose coffers mighty sums have flowed, but he whose possessions are all in his soul, who is upright and exalted, who spurns inconstancy, who sees no man with whom he wishes to change places, who rates men only at their value as men, who takes Nature for his teacher, conforming to her laws and living as she commands, whom no violence can deprive of his possessions, who turns evil into good, is unerring in judgment, unshaken, unafraid, who may be moved by force but never moved to distraction, whom Fortune when she hurls at him with all her might the deadliest missile in her armoury, may graze, though rarely, but never wound.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLVII: On master and slave

“He that owns himself has lost nothing. But how few men are blessed with ownership of self!”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLV: On sophistical argumentation

“Very often the things that cost nothing cost us the most heavily; I can show you many objects the quest and acquisition of which have wrested freedom from our hands.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLII: On Values

“It is generally agreed that no activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied – not rhetoric or liberal studies – since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLII: On Values

“Non faciunt meliorem equum aurei freni.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLIX: On the Shortness of Life

“You must die erect and unyielding.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLI: On the god within us

“You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXXVII: On Allegiance to Virtue

“You do not know where death awaits you; so be ready for it everywhere.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXVIII: On travel as a cure for discontent

“I do not know whether I shall make progress; but I should prefer to lack success rather than to lack faith.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXVI: On Old Age and Death

“It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXV: On Reformation

“Mucius put his hand into the fire. It is painful to be burned; but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself!”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

“Armies have endured all manner of want, have lived on roots, and have resisted hunger by means of food too revolting to mention. All this they have suffered to gain a kingdom, and—what is more marvellous—to gain a kingdom that will be another’s. Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

“There is no reason why poverty should call us away from philosophy—no, nor even actual want. For when hastening after wisdom, we must endure even hunger. Men have endured hunger when their towns were besieged, and what other reward for their endurance did they obtain than that they did not fall under the conqueror’s power? How much greater is the promise of the prize of everlasting liberty, and the assurance that we need fear neither God nor man! Even though we starve, we must reach that goal.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XVII: On Philosophy and Riches

“But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XVII: On Philosophy and Riches

“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter VII: On crowds

“I commend you and rejoice in the fact that you are persistent in your studies, and that, putting all else aside, you make it each day your endeavour to become a better man.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

That was indeed agreat benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.
Seneca is quoting Hecato.
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter VI: On precepts and exemplars

“No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter V: On the Philosopher’s Mean

“The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.”

Seneca the Younger livre Lettres à Lucilius

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter IV: On the terrors of death