The collection / 405 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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405 results · Page 11 of 17Play this collection ▷

01c. 32 AD

The pleasures of the palate deal with us like Egyptian thieves who strangle those whom they embrace.

Seneca / quote

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02c. 32 AD

Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration, but temper and moderation generally produce permanence in all things.

Seneca / quote

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03c. 32 AD

Light griefs are plaintive, but great ones are dumb.

Seneca / quote

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04c. 32 AD

Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.

Seneca / quote

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05c. 83 AD

If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.

Plutarch / quote

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06c. 32 AD

There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.

Seneca / quote

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07c. 32 AD

As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without culture, so the mind without cultivation can never produce good fruit.

Seneca / quote

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08c. 32 AD

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.

Seneca / quote

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09c. 32 AD

Opportunity has hair in front; behind she is bald. If you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again.

Seneca / quote

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10c. 32 AD

Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.

Seneca / quote

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11c. 32 AD

Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp be carried to such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.

Seneca / quote

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12c. 50 AD

When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the repentance that is likely to follow it.

Epictetus / quote

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13c. 83 AD

It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority, exciting, as they do, every passion, and discovering every latent vice.

Plutarch / quote

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14c. 83 AD

Those who are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.

Plutarch / quote

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15c. 32 AD

The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.

Seneca / quote

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16c. 32 AD

Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.

Seneca / quote

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17c. 32 AD

He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.

Seneca / quote

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18c. 32 AD

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.

Seneca / quote

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19c. 83 AD

It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.

Plutarch / quote

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20c. 32 AD

An avenging God closely follows the haughty.

Seneca / quote

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21c. 83 AD

If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.

Plutarch / quote

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22c. 50 AD

If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.

Epictetus / quote

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23c. 50 AD

Dare to look up to God and say: "Deal with me in the future as thou wilt. I am of the same mind as thou art; I am thine. I refuse nothing that pleases Thee. Lead me where Thou wilt; cloth me in any dress Thou choosest."

Epictetus / quote

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24c. 32 AD

Other men's sins are before our eyes, our own are behind our back.

Seneca / quote

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