Seneca the Younger Quotes About Values

• It is man's duty to live in conformity with the divine will, and this means, firstly, bringing his life into line with 'nature's laws', and secondly, resigning himself completely and uncomplainingly to whatever fate may send him. Only by living thus, and not setting too high a value on things which can at any moment be taken away from him, can he discover that true, unshakeable peace and contentment to which ambition, luxury and above all avarice are among the greatest obstacles.

  Seneca the Younger

  Taken, Mean, Ambition

• A man who examines the saddle and bridle and not the animal itself when he is out to buy a horse is a fool; similarly, only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his position, which after all is only something we wear like clothing.

  Seneca the Younger

  Horse, Animal, Men

• We are so vain as to set the highest value upon those things to which nature has assigned the lowest place. What can be more coarse and rude in the mind than the precious metals, or more slavish and dirty than the people that dig and work them? And yet they defile our minds more than our bodies, and make the possessor fouler than the artificer of them. Rich men, in fine, are only the greater slaves.

  Seneca the Younger

  Dirty, Men, People

• The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the debt is acknowledged; it's the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that's weighed.

  Seneca the Younger

  Inspirational, Friendship, Giving

  "Moral Letters to Lucilius (Letter LXXXI)". Book by Seneca the Younger, 1920.

• Freedom can't be kept for nothing. If you set a high value on liberty, you must set a low value on everything else.

  Seneca the Younger

  Freedom, Integrity, Responsibility

• Virtue hath no virtue if it be not impugned; then appeareth how great it is, of what value and power it is, when by patience it approveth what it works.

  Seneca the Younger

  Virtue, Ifs, Values

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