The collection / 593 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 75 BC

Whatever that be which thinks, which understands, which wills, which acts, it is something celestial and divine; and upon that account must necessarily be eternal.

Cicero / quote

02c. 32 AD

When an author is too fastidious about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his matter flimsy.

Seneca / quote

03c. 32 AD

Why is there no man who confesses his vices? It is because he has not yet laid them aside. It is a waking man only who can tell his dreams.

Seneca / quote

04c. 75 BC

Wise sayings are as saltpits; you may extract salt out of them, and sprinkle it where you will.

Cicero / quote

05c. 32 AD

With parsimony a little is sufficient, and without it nothing is sufficient, whereas frugality makes a poor man rich.

Seneca / quote

06c. 32 AD

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

Seneca / quote

07c. 83 AD

It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to some one else.

Plutarch / quote

08c. 32 AD

Such as the chain of causes we call Fate, such is the chain of wishes: one links on to another; the whole man is bound in the chain of wishing for ever.

Seneca / quote

09c. 75 BC

Can anything be more absurd than that the nearer we are to our journey’s end, we should lay in the more provision for it?

Cicero / quote

10c. 32 AD

We deliberate about the parcels of life, but not about life itself, and so we arrive all unawares at its different epochs, and have the trouble of beginning all again. And so finally it is that we do not walk as men confidently towards death, but let death come suddenly upon us.

Seneca / quote

11c. 83 AD

Poverty is not dishonourable in itself, but only when it arises from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.

Plutarch / quote

12c. 75 BC

Friendship throws a greater lustre on prosperity, while it lightens adversity by sharing in its griefs and troubles.

Cicero / quote

13c. 32 AD

No evil is without its compensation.

Seneca / quote

14c. 83 AD

Rest is the sweet sauce of labour.

Plutarch / quote

15c. 32 AD

Do you seek Alcides' equal? There is none but himself.

Seneca / quote

16c. 32 AD

There is no benefit so small, that a good man will not magnify it.

Seneca / quote

17c. 75 BC

What is there in nature so dear to man as his own children?

Cicero / quote

18c. 75 BC

The dutifulness of children is the foundation of all virtues.

Cicero / quote

19c. 75 BC

The divinity who rules within us, forbids us to leave this world without his command.

Cicero / quote

20c. 32 AD

It goes a great way toward making a man faithful, to let him understand that you think him so.

Seneca / quote

21c. 32 AD

He was never a friend who ceased to be so—for a slight cause.

Seneca / quote

22c. 32 AD

He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before it is necessary.

Seneca / quote

23c. 75 BC

There is no grief that time will not soften.

Cicero / quote

24c. 32 AD

No man is free who is a slave to any kind of useless habit.

Seneca / quote