"[Seneca] would have denounced the opinion to which most philosophers, tacitly or otherwise, have come round in the last half-century, that it is no part of the business of philosophy to turn people into better persons, as tantamount to desertion or lèse-majesté."

"[Seneca’s] tremendous faith in philosophy … was grounded on a belief that her end was the practical one of curing souls, of bringing peace and order to the feverish minds of men pursuing the wrong aims in life."

"He is refreshingly undogmatic, incomplete, and at times even senile. We cannot rightly accuse him of all the moralizing and dogmatism which spoiled the objective accuracy of medieval Science before Roger Bacon. Nor can we blame him for assuming that imprisoned air is the main agency in earthquakes, or for not knowing that the rainbow's colors are the result of decomposition of white light instead of a seeming color which does not really exist, or for believing that lightning melts metals and freezes wine, or that the sun is supported by exhalations from the earth. In his assumption, however, that comets may have orbits which carry them beyond the zodiac, that there is an evolutionary process in the world, and that rings round the sun are often the result of atmospheric conditions, he is sound. But after all, how accurate were the astronomers before Galileo, the physicists before Newton, or the biologists before Darwin? Seneca's guesses are as good as those of any other speculator before the discoveries of modern Science."

"Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary."

"Then there is none of the ancient moralists to whom the modern, from Montaigne, Charron, Ralegh, Bacon, downwards, owe more than to Seneca. Seneca has no spark of the kindly warmth of Horace; he has not the animation of Plutarch; he abounds too much in the artificial and extravagant paradoxes of the Stoics. But, for all that, he touches the great and eternal commonplaces of human occasion—friendship, health, bereavement, riches, poverty, death—with a hand that places him high among the wise masters of life. All through the ages men, tossed in the beating waves of circumstance, have found more in the essays and letters of Seneca than in any other secular writer, words of good counsel and comfort."

"Caligula used to say that Seneca, who was very popular just then, composed "mere school exercises," and that he was "sand without lime.""

"To be angry with a man is to hate him; to hate him is to wish him harm; but to wish him well, even if he has done you harm, is the mark of a great mind."

"Quaeris Alcidae parem? Nemo est nisi ipse."

"rursus prosperum ac felix scelus virtus vocatur; sontibus parent boni, ius est in armis, opprimit leges timor."

"inveniet viam aut faciet."

"Iniqua raro maximis virtutibus fortuna parcit ; nemo se tuto diu periculis offerre tam crebris potest; quem saepe transit casus, aliquando invenit."

"qui genus iactat suum, aliena laudat."

"ars prima regni est posse invidiam pati."

"arma non servant modum; nec temperari facile nec reprimi potest stricti ensis ira; bella delectat cruor."

"quaeritur belli exitus, non causa."

"Cogi qui potest nescit mori."

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via."

"quae fuit durum pati, meminisse dulce est."

"Qui non vetat peccare cum possit, iubet."

"Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit."

"Pyrrhus: Lex nulla capto parcit aut poenam impedit. Agamemnon: Quod non vetat lex, hoc vetat fieri pudor. Pyr: Quodcumque libuit facere victori licet. Agam.: Minimum decet libere cui multum licet."

"Levis est dolor qui capere consilium potest."

"Qui nil potest sperare, desperate nihil."

"Iniqua nunquam regna perpetuo manent."

"Cui prodest scelus, is fecit."

"Curae leues locuntur, ingentes stupent."

"scelere velandum est scelus."

"Mens impudicam facere, non casus, solet."

"mens regnum bona possidet."

"Illi mors gravis incubat Qui notus nimis omnibus Ignotus moritur sibi"

"peior est bello timor ipse belli."

"Quem mihi dabis qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat, qui diem aestimet, qui intellegat se cotidie mori?"

"In hoc enim fallimur, quod mortem prospicimus: magna pars eius iam praeterit; quidquid aetatis retro est mors tenet."

"Lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by."

"Tanta stultitia mortalium est."

"Sera parsimonia in fundo est."

"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."

"Nusquam est qui ubique est. Vitam in peregrinatione exigentibus hoc evenit, ut multa hospitia habeant, nullas amicitias."

"Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est."

"Nam illa tumultu gaudens non est industria sed exagitatae mentis concursatio."

"Nulli potest secura vita contingere qui de producenda nimis cogitat."

"Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die."

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

"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."

"Plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit; in rem praesentem venias oportet, primum quia homines amplius oculis quam auribus credunt, deinde quia longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla."

"“What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.” That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind."

"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."

"Recede in te ipse quantum potes; cum his versare qui te meliorem facturi sunt, illos admitte quos tu potes facere meliores. Mutuo ista fiunt, et homines dum docent discunt."

"sic vive cum hominibus tamquam deus videat, si loquere cum deo tamquam homines audiant."

"sciant quae optima sunt esse communia."