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110 quotes
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Inner strength4 quotes
Be like a headland of rock on which the waves break incessantly: but it stands fast and around it the seething of the waters sinks to rest. — Marcus Aurelius · 180It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. — Seneca · 58Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear. — Marcus Aurelius · 180For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand. — Boethius · 523
Character3 quotes
For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand. — Boethius · 523No one ever suddenly became depraved. — Juvenal · 127You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise. — Seneca · 65
Free will3 quotes
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. — Seneca · 58Whatever befalls you was prepared for you beforehand from eternity, and the thread of causes was spinning from everlasting both your existence and this which befalls you. — Marcus Aurelius · 180What place can be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to order? — Boethius · 523
Honor3 quotes
Count it the greatest sin to prefer mere existence to honor, and for the sake of life to lose the reasons for living. — Juvenal · 127The thing which is the most outstanding and chiefly to be desired by all healthy and good and well-off persons, is leisure with honor. — Cicero · 56 BCNever esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect. — Marcus Aurelius · 180
Life3 quotes
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, for it requires that we should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Life is long if you know how to use it. — Seneca · 49Remember that no man loses other life than that which he lives, nor lives other than that which he loses. — Marcus Aurelius · 180
Morality3 quotes
If not becoming, don’t do it. If not true, don’t say it. Let these be your fixed principles. — Marcus Aurelius · 180No one ever suddenly became depraved. — Juvenal · 127There exists a law, inborn of our hearts by natural intuition, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. — Cicero · 52 BC
War3 quotes
Carthage must be destroyed. — Cato the Elder · 149 BCLaws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BCWe are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples? — Seneca · 65
Adaptability2 quotes
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, for it requires that we should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected. — Marcus Aurelius · 180A great step towards independence is a good humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment. — Seneca · 65
Adversity2 quotes
A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent. — Seneca · 65Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. — Seneca · 64
Body and soul2 quotes
There are more disorders of the mind than of the body, and they are of a more dangerous nature. — Cicero · 45 BC’Tis very dishonourable in life, that the soul should fail and desert its duty; while the body can hold out, and sustain its part. — Marcus Aurelius · 180
Circle of life2 quotes
Time is a violent torrent; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle. — Marcus Aurelius · 180
Decadence2 quotes
The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things-bread and circuses! — Juvenal · 127We are now suffering the evils of a long peace. Luxury, more deadly than war, broods over the city, and avenges a conquered world. — Juvenal · 127
Decline of civilization2 quotes
Only two things does he anxiously wish for-bread and circuses. — Juvenal · 127The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now concerns itself no more, and longs eagerly for just two things-bread and circuses! — Juvenal · 127
Friendship2 quotes
A friend is, as it were, a second self. — Cicero · 44 BCWhatever we do or suffer for a friend is pleasant, because love is the principal cause of pleasure. — St. Thomas Aquinas · 1265
God2 quotes
Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a prime mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God. — St. Thomas Aquinas · 1265Is the dwelling place of God anywhere but in the earth and sea, the air and sky, and virtue? Why seek we further for deities? Whatever you see, whatever you touch, that is Jupiter. — Lucan · 65
Happiness2 quotes
Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate? — Boethius · 524Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content. — Boethius · 523
Hate2 quotes
Let them hate, so long as they fear. — CaligulaWhom they have injured they also hate. — Seneca · 45
History2 quotes
To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. — Cicero · 46 BCHistory is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life, and brings us tidings of antiquity. — Cicero · 55 BC
Ignorance2 quotes
To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. — Cicero · 46 BCIt is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. — Seneca · 65
Length of life2 quotes
The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same things. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long. — Seneca · 65
Life and death2 quotes
The hour which gives us life begins to take it away. — Seneca · 65Eternal law has arranged nothing better than this, that it has given us one way in to life, but many ways out. — Seneca · 65
Living well2 quotes
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, for it requires that we should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Life is long if you know how to use it. — Seneca · 49
Love2 quotes
O happy race of mortals, if your hearts are ruled, as is the universe, by Love! — Boethius · 523It is man's peculiar duty to love even those who wrong him. — Marcus Aurelius · 180
Materialism2 quotes
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. — Seneca · 65No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have. — Seneca · 65
Moral theory2 quotes
No one ever suddenly became depraved. — Juvenal · 127There exists a law, inborn of our hearts by natural intuition, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. — Cicero · 52 BC
Overcoming adversity2 quotes
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. — Seneca · 58A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent. — Seneca · 65
Problem of evil2 quotes
If all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live, if there were no slaying of animals; and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution. — St. Thomas Aquinas · 1265Wherefore not without cause has one of your own followers asked, "If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good?" — Boethius · 523
Purpose of life2 quotes
Only two things does he anxiously wish for-bread and circuses. — Juvenal · 127When a man sees his end, he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. — Marcus Aurelius · 2000
Solitude2 quotes
Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Nothing to my way of thinking is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in their own company. — Seneca · 65
The human condition2 quotes
As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion. — Marcus Aurelius · 180I was shipwrecked before I got on board. — Seneca · 65