Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca
philosopher · statesman · Roman Empire · 4 BC?–AD 65
Stoic philosopher and tutor to the emperor Nero. In his last years he wrote 124 letters to his friend Lucilius.
Posts
c. AD 49
It is not that we have little time, but that we have wasted much of it.
Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus.On the Shortness of Life, chapter 1
c. AD 63 · To a friend whose gloom would not lift however far he travelled
It is your mind you must change, not the sky above you.
Animum debes mutare, non caelum.Letters to Lucilius 28
c. AD 63 · To a friend anxious about the future
There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than that crush us, and we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Plura sunt, Lucili, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.Letters to Lucilius 13
c. AD 63 · Advising him not to flit from book to book. A life spent travelling, he goes on, brings many lodgings and no friendships
He who is everywhere is nowhere.
Nusquam est qui ubique est.Letters to Lucilius 2
c. AD 64
Listen: noise of every kind is ringing all round me. I live right above a bathhouse. Now picture every sort of sound that can make one hate one's own ears.
Ecce undique me varius clamor circumsonat: supra ipsum balneum habito. Propone nunc tibi omnia genera vocum quae in odium possunt aures adducereLetters to Lucilius 56
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us