David Harte > David's Quotes

“Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”
― Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
― Seneca

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
― Seneca, Seneca's Morals: Of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”
― Seneca

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. ”
― Seneca

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
― Seneca

“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
― Seneca