Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Seneca The YoungerRead
The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and pertubations; to understand and do our duties to God and man, and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the future.
Interpretation
True happiness comes from being free of worries and fulfilling our responsibilities while appreciating the present moment.
Seneca the Younger's quote emphasizes that genuine happiness, or 'felicity', is achieved through a life free from anxiety and distractions. It advocates for the importance of understanding and fulfilling our duties to both God and humanity, and encourages us to focus on the present rather than being overly concerned about the future, thereby leading to a more fulfilling existence.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a speech on mental well-being at a wellness conference.
Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
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.
Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.
To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart.
Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you're striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go.
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.
When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed, do you pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?
Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?
We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.
And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.