Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaRead
When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.
Interpretation
Healthy individuals often provide advice to those who are unwell, yet they may not fully understand the challenges faced by the sick.
This quote by Seneca highlights a common human tendency where those who are not experiencing hardship feel confident in giving advice to those who are. It serves as a reminder of the importance of empathy and understanding the struggles of others, especially when one's own situation is stable. Genuine compassion and support are more valuable than mere words of advice.
In practice
A speaker at a health seminar discussing the importance of compassion for those dealing with illness.
Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.
Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.
The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.
A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts.
True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.
Youth is the trustee of prosperity.
I would rather speak the truth to ten men than blandishments and lying to a million. Try it, ye who think there is nothing in it! Try what it is to speak with God behind you, to speak so as to be only the arrow in the bow which the Almighty draws.
If men wound you with injuries, meet them with patience; hasty words rankle the wound, soft language dresses it, forgiveness cures it, and oblivion takes away the scar. It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.
Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man.
There be three kinds of unhappie men. 1. Qui scit & non docet, Hee that hath knowledge and teacheth not. 2. Qui docet & non vivit, He that teacheth, and liveth not thereafter. 3. Qui nescit, & non interrogat, He that knoweth not, and doth not enquire to understand.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.