Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Seneca The YoungerRead
If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.
Interpretation
What this quote means
To find peace from external troubles, one must change their inner self rather than just their surroundings.
This quote suggests that many of the challenges and annoyances we face in life are often tied to our perceptions and attitudes. Instead of seeking to change our environment or escape to a different location, the wisdom lies in transforming ourselves—our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors—to find true freedom from the things that trouble us.
Themes
EscapeChangeSelfPerceptionFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech to encourage personal growth.
More from Seneca The Younger
All quotes →No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.
Seneca The YoungerRead
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
Seneca The YoungerRead
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
Seneca The YoungerRead
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
Seneca The YoungerRead
Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart.
Seneca The YoungerRead
Similar quotes
Remember your contemporaries who have passed away and were your age. Remember the honors and fame they earned, the high posts they held, and the beautiful bodies they possessed. Today all of them are turned to dust. They have left orphans and widows behind them, their wealth is being wasted, and their houses turned into ruins. _x000D_ _x000D_ No sign of them is left today, and they lie in dark holes underneath the earth. _x000D_ _x000D_ Picture their faces before your mind's eye and ponder.
Al-GhazaliRead
Without the gospel we hate ourselves instead of our sin.
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It is hard to put aside partisanship. It is hard to give up the easy wisecracking jeer that divides and destroys. It is hard - very hard - to have worked sincerely and wholeheartedly for a cause and to have lost. Most of all, it is hard to put aside personal prejudices. And yet we must put these things aside.
Stephen Vincent BenetRead
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other members of the human race, rather disappointingly.
John UpdikeRead
When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts. Germany lost the Second World War. Fascism won it. Believe me, my friend.
George CarlinRead