We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and accountability in personal growth.
Seneca the Elder encourages individuals to engage in nightly self-reflection, assessing their personal growth by evaluating the challenges they faced, the temptations they resisted, and the virtues they developed. This practice not only fosters self-awareness but also strengthens one's character and moral resolve, promoting continuous improvement in the pursuit of a virtuous life.
In practice
A mentor sharing this quote with mentees during a workshop on personal development.
We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.
The sun also shines on the wicked.
Let us be brave in the face of adversity.
The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.
What you think about yourself is much more important than what others think of you.
What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
When I appeared before the draft board examiner during World War II, he asked me if I thought I could kill. "I don't know about strangers," I replied, "but friends, certainly."
The intention to live as long as possible isn't one of the mind's best intentions, because quantity isn't the same as quality.
The truth of an upright man must be accepted on his own terms. Moreover, since natures vary, we must agree that all the beauties of human excellence may be fostered by faiths that we do not share.
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
When all is said and done, we exist only in relation to the world, and our senses evolved as scouts who bridge that divide and provide volumes of information, warnings and rewards.
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