Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“ NERO: I, too, long made this same mistake, but the unmistakable signs of her lonely heart and features revealed her hatred for me. Yet burning indignation has determined to avenge this. I have found a wife worthy of my couch—a woman of noble family and magnificent bearing. [73] She is more beautiful than Venus, or the wife of Jove, or the stately goddess of war.
SENECA: Let the goodness, fidelity, modesty, and character of the wife please the husband. The good alone continue to be second to none in mind and spirit. The days, one by one, rob the flower of its beauty. ”

“ If a philosopher be exposed to torments, the ax over his head, his body wounded, his guts in his hands, I will allow him to groan; for virtue itself cannot divest him of the nature of a man; but if his mind stand firm, he has discharged his part. A great mind enables a man to maintain his station with honor; so that he only makes use of what he meets in his way, as a pilgrim that would fain be at his journey’s end.
It is the excellency of a great mind to ask nothing, and to want nothing; and to say, “I will have nothing to do with fortune, that repulses Cato, and prefers Vatinius.” ”

“ Phaedra: Then I'll no rival fear.
Nurse: Thy husband comes.
Phaedra: With him Pirithoüs!
Nurse: Thy sire!245
Phaedra: To Ariadne he was kind.
Nurse: O child, by these white locks of age, I pray,
This care-filled heart, these breasts that suckled thee,
Put off this rage; to thine own rescue come.
The greater part of life is will to live.
Phaedra: Shame has not wholly fled my noble soul.250
I yield: let love, which will not be controlled,
Be conquered. Nor shalt thou, fair fame, be stained.
This way alone is left, sole hope of woe:
Theseus I'll follow, and by death shun sin. ”

“ No one who has ever applied himself to philosophy ever becomes completely wicked; his mind becomes so deeply coloured with it, that its tints can never be entirely spoiled and blackened. In the next place, I ask whether this man of yours be ferocious merely in intent, or whether he breaks out into actual outrages upon mankind? You have instanced the tyrants Apollodorus and Phalaris; if the bad man restrains their evil likeness within himself, why should I not return his benefit to him, in order to set myself free from any further dealings with him? ”

“ A good man (like a good soldier) will stand his ground, receive wounds, glory in his scars, and in death itself love his master for whom he falls; with that divine precept always in his mind, “Follow good:” whereas he that complains, laments, and groans, must yield nevertheless, and do his duty though in spite of his heart. Now, what a madness is it for a man to choose rather to be lugged than to follow, and vainly to contend with the calamities of human life? Whatsoever is laid upon us by necessity, we should receive generously; for it is foolish to strive with what we cannot avoid. ”

“ Restrain, quench passion's fire, and curb thy grief.
Show now that thou art wife of Hercules.
Deianira: Shall captive Iole unto my sons
Give brothers, and a lowly slave become
The daughter-in-law of Jove? In common course
Will fire and rushing torrent never run;280
The thirsty Bear will never taste the sea—
And never shall my woes go unavenged.
Though thou didst bear the vasty heavens up,
Though all the world is debtor unto thee,
'Twill not avail thee now, for thou shalt find
A monster greater far than Hydra's rage,
An angry wife's revenge, awaiting thee. ”

“ This anxiety is not suitable to a grateful mind, which, on the contrary, produces the utmost confidence in oneself, and which drives away all trouble by the consciousness of real affection towards one's benefactor. To say "Take back what you gave me," is no less a reproach than to say "You are in my debt." Let this be the first privilege of a benefit, that he who bestowed it may choose the time when he will have it returned. "But I fear that men may speak ill of me." You do wrong if you are grateful only for the sake of your reputation, and not to satisfy your conscience. ”

“ Not to return one good office for another is inhuman; but to return evil for good is diabolical. There are too many even of this sort, who, the more they owe, the more they hate. There is nothing more dangerous than to oblige those people; for when they are conscious of not paying the debt, they wish the creditor out of the way. It is a mortal hatred, that which arises from the shame of an abused benefit. When we are on the asking side, what a deal of cringing there is, and profession! “Well, I shall never forget this favor, it will be an eternal obligation to me.” ”

“ For joy of thee, to feel and see thee near.
Hercules: Why I should longer keep my soul in life,
And linger on the earth, there is no cause;
For I have lost my all: my balanced mind,1260
My arms, my reputation, children, wife,
The glory of my strength—my madness too.
There is no remedy for tainted souls;
But death alone can cure me of my sin.
Amphitr.: And wilt thou slay thy father?
Hercules: Lest I do,
I'll kill myself.
Amphitryon: Before thy father's face?
Hercules: Such impious sights I've taught him to behold. ”

“ God has built for you a huge mansion that fears no fire or ruin, in which you see no flimsy veneers, thinner than the very saw with which they are cut, but vast blocks of most precious stone, all composed of those various and different substances whose paltriest fragments you admire so much; he has built a roof which glitters in one fashion by day, and in another by night; and yet do you say that you have received no benefit? When you so greatly prize what you possess, do you act the part of an ungrateful man, and think that there is no one to whom you are indebted for them? ”

“ But what is it we fear? “Oh! it is a terrible thing to die.” Well; and is it not better once to suffer it, than always to fear it? The earth itself suffers both with me, and before me. How many islands are swallowed up in the sea! how many towns do we sail over! nay, how many nations are wholly lost, either by inundations or earthquakes! and shall I be afraid of my little body? why should I, that am sure to die, and that all other things are mortal, be fearful of coming to my last gasp myself? It is the fear of death that makes us base, and troubles and destroys the life we would preserve ”

“ It makes a great difference whether any one bestows a benefit upon us for his own sake, or whether he does so partly for his own sake and partly for ours. He who looks only to his own interests, and who does us good because he cannot otherwise make a profit for himself, seems to me to be like the farmer who provides winter and summer fodder for his flocks, or like the man who feeds up the captives whom he has bought in order that they may fetch a better price in the slave market, or who crams and curry-combs fat oxen for sale ”

“ And so for banishment, which to one man is so grievous, and yet to another is no more than a bare change of place: a thing that we do every day for our health, pleasure, nay, and upon the account even of common business.
How terrible is death to one man, which to another appears the greatest providence in nature, even toward all ages and conditions! It is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all. It sets the slave at liberty, carries the banished man home, and places all mortals upon the same level: insomuch, that life itself were a punishment without it. ”

“ Shall he, who overcame dread Nessus' self,
By this same Nessus' blood be overcome?
Deianira: 'Tis vain to stay one who is bent on death.
It is my will at once to flee the light.
Who dies with Hercules has lived enough.
Nurse: Now by these hoary locks, as suppliant, 925
And by these breasts which suckled thee, I beg:
Abate thy wounded heart's wild threatenings,
Give o'er thy dread resolve for cruel death.
Deianira: Whoe'er persuades the wretched not to die
Is cruel. Death is sometimes punishment, 930
But oft a boon, and brings forgiveness oft. ”

“ You, the slave of lust, of gluttony, of a harlot, nay, who are owned as a joint chattel by harlots, can you call anyone else a slave? Call a man a slave? why, I pray you, whither are you being hurried by those bearers who carry your litter? whither are these men with their smart military-looking cloaks carrying you? is it not to the door of some door-keeper, or to the gardens of some one who has not even a subordinate office? and then you, who regard the salute of another man's slave as a benefit, declare that you cannot receive a benefit from your own slave. ”

“ We take upon us like princes, and fly out for every trifle, as though there were life and death in the case. What a madness is it for a man to lay out an estate upon a table or a cabinet, a patrimony upon a pain of pendants, and to inflame the price of curiosities according to the hazard either of breaking or losing of them? To wear garments that will neither defend a woman’s body, nor her modesty: so thin that one could make a conscience of swearing she were naked: for she hardly shows more in the privacies of her amour than in public? ”

“ To conclude, where my proper virtue fails me, I will have recourse to examples, and say to myself, Am I greater than Philip or Augustus, who both of them put up with greater reproaches? Many have pardoned their enemies, and shall not I forgive a neglect, a little freedom of the tongue? Nay, the patience but of a second thought does the business: for though the first shock be violent; take it in parts, and it is subdued. And, to wind up all in one word, the great lesson of mankind, as well in this as in all other cases, is, “to do as we would be done by.” ”

“ Just as a hireling bestows a benefit when he does more than he engaged himself to do, so when a slave's love for his master raises him above his condition and urges him to do something noble—something which would be a credit even to men more fortunate by birth—he surpasses the hopes of his master, and is a benefit found in the house. Do you think it is just that we should be angry with our slaves when they do less than their duty, and that we should not be grateful to them when they do more? ”