Seneca the Younger

c. 4 BC – AD 65 · Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist & statesman

Lucius Annaeus Seneca — called the Younger to distinguish him from his father, the rhetorician Seneca the Elder — was a Stoic philosopher, tragedian, and for a time the tutor and adviser of the emperor Nero. His Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, a sequence of 124 letters on ethics written in his last years, is the source of a large share of the Stoic maxims that circulate today. Ordered by Nero to take his own life in AD 65, he remains one of the most quoted — and most misquoted — writers of antiquity.

Traced to source

8 quotes we’ve traced to Seneca the Younger

“If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him”

Verified

“If you wish to be loved, love”

Verified

“When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind”

Verified

“You do not know where death awaits you; so be ready for it everywhere”

Verified

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it's stored than to anything on which it's poured”

Disputed

“He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself”

Disputed

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened”

Disputed

“If a man does not know to what port he is sailing, no wind is favorable”

Disputed

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