Seneca

"A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials."

"Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it."

"As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters."

"Associate with people who are likely to improve you."

"Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life."

"He who is brave is free."

"Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war."

"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body."

"Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness."

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

"Every night before going to sleep, we must ask ourselves: what weakness did I overcome today? What virtue did I acquire?"

"Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men."

"Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms — you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older."

"He is most powerful who has power over himself."

"He who fears death will never do anything worth of a man who is alive."

"He who is brave is free."

"He who spares the wicked injures the good."

"If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable."

"If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person."

"If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present."

"If you wish to be loved, love."

"Ignorance is the cause of fear."

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."

"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it."

"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."

"It is the mind that makes us rich."

"It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable."

"It is not that I am brave, but that I know what is not worth fearing."

"If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favorable."

"Life is long, if you know how to use it."

"The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

"No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity."

"No man was ever wise by chance."

"No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don't have."

"Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart."

"Only time can heal what reason cannot."

"Retire into yourself as much as you can; associate with those who will improve you."

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage."

"We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

"He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary."

"The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today."

"The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."

"There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality."

"There is no easy way from the earth to the stars."

"There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with."

"They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn."

"Throw me to the wolves and I will return leading the pack."

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere."

"To err is human, but to persist in the mistake is diabolical."

"To expect punishment is to suffer it; and to earn it is to expect it."

"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."

"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality."

"We learn not in the school, but in life."

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."

"What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears."

"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness."

"While we wait for life, life passes."

"You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire."

"You want to live—but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying—and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?"