We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?
Seneca The ElderRead
The sun also shines on the wicked.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Good fortune and happiness can occur to anyone, regardless of their morality.
This quote by Seneca the Elder implies that life is impartial; it bestows blessings like sunlight on both the virtuous and the wicked alike. It serves as a reminder that good and bad people alike experience the joys and challenges of life, highlighting the randomness and fairness of nature.
Themes
JusticeMoralityFortuneNatureLife
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about justice, this quote could illustrate that life does not always reward good behavior.
More from Seneca The Elder
All quotes βWe 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.
Seneca The ElderRead
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.
Seneca The ElderRead
Let us be brave in the face of adversity.
Seneca The ElderRead
The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.
Seneca The ElderRead
What you think about yourself is much more important than what others think of you.
Seneca The ElderRead
Similar quotes
Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus, Can a person lay a new foundation every day? The old man replied, If you work hard, you can lay a new foundation every moment. Abba Pimen said, To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave behind all self-will; these are the instruments for the work of the soul. The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.
Saint John ChrysostomRead
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
My hypothesis is that for people who are both trained and inclined to think in rigorously logical ways, it is particularly difficult to adapt to the Soviet system of doublethink.
Masha GessenRead
The question of how things will settle down is the only important question.
Leo TolstoyRead
The best interpreter of the law is custom.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?
Carl SandburgRead