Minor Dialogues
Seneca
2,087 passages indexed from Minor Dialogues (Seneca) — Page 23 of 42
License: Public Domain
Minor Dialogues, passage 932
XIX. But, to come to topics of consolation, in the first place consider if you please to what our remedies must be applied, and next, in what way. It is regret for the absence of his loved one which causes a mourner to grieve: yet it is clear that this in itself is bearable enough; for we do not weep at their being absent or intending to be absent during their lifetime, although when they leave our sight we have no more pleasure in them. What tortures us, therefore, is an idea.
Minor Dialogues, passage 611
VIII. Since we know not how to endure an injury, let us take care not to receive one: we should live with the quietest and easiest-tempered persons, not with anxious or with sullen ones: for our own habits are copied from those with whom we associate, and just as some bodily diseases are communicated by touch, so also the mind transfers its vices to its neighbours.
Minor Dialogues, passage 398
You will behold it both at Trasumene and at Cannae, and lastly at your own city of Carthage. Volesus, who not long ago, under the Emperor Augustus, was proconsul of Asia Minor, after he had one day beheaded three hundred persons, strutted out among the corpses with a haughty air, as though he had performed some grand and notable exploit, and exclaimed in Greek, “What a kingly action!” What would this man have done, had he been really a king?
Minor Dialogues, passage 836
Wherefore endure to listen to, nay, encourage conversation of which he is the subject, and let your ears be open to the name and memory of your son. You ought not to consider this painful, like those who in such a case think that part of their misfortune consists in listening to consolation.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1986
The most remarkable distinction, however, is the following: bees are very fierce, and for their size are the most pugnacious of creatures, and leave their stings in the wounds which they make, but the king himself has no sting: nature does not wish him to be savage or to seek revenge at so dear a rate, and so has deprived him of his weapon and disarmed his rage.
Minor Dialogues, passage 734
But, by Hercules, a great and just man looks with respect at the bravest of his enemies, and the most obstinate defender of his freedom and his country, and wishes that he had such a man for his own countryman and soldier.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1605
The sun is perpetually in motion, and passes from one quarter to another, and although he revolves with the entire heaven, yet nevertheless he has a motion in the contrary direction to that of the universe itself, and passes through all the constellations without remaining in any: his wandering is incessant, and he never ceases to move from place to place.
Minor Dialogues, passage 281
IX. In the next place, anger has nothing useful in itself, and does not rouse up the mind to warlike deeds: for a virtue, being self-sufficient, never needs the assistance of a vice: whenever it needs an impetuous effort, it does not become angry, but rises to the occasion, and excites or soothes itself as far as it deems requisite, just as the machines which hurl darts may be twisted to a greater or lesser degree of tension at the manager’s pleasure.
Minor Dialogues, passage 98
[1] _honestior_ opposed to the gladiator—the loftier the station of the combatant. The Gracchus of Juvenal, Sat. ii. and viii., illustrates, the passage.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1341
All life is slavery: let each man therefore reconcile himself to his lot, complain of it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good lies within his reach. No condition can be so wretched that an impartial mind can find no compensations in it. Small sites, if ingeniously divided, may be made use of for many different purposes, and arrangement will render ever so narrow a room habitable.
Minor Dialogues, passage 244
“The weakest of men,” argues he, “are often angry with the most powerful: so you may be sure that anger is not a desire to punish their antagonist—for men do not desire to punish him when they cannot hope to do so.” In the first place, I spoke of a desire to inflict punishment, not a power to do so: now men desire even what they cannot obtain.
Minor Dialogues, passage 101
[5] He was a “mirmillo,” a kind of gladiator who was armed with a Gaulish helmet.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1239
Both those which {251} afford us real strength and those which do but trick us out in a more attractive form, require long years before they gradually are adapted to us by time. But I fear that custom, which confirms most things, implants this vice more and more deeply in me. Long acquaintance with both good and bad people leads one to esteem them all alike.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1365
We must limit the running to and fro which most men practise, rambling about houses, theatres, and market-places. They mind other men’s business, and always seem as though they themselves had something to do.
Minor Dialogues, passage 2015
Such a ruler is soon cast down from his throne; his life is attempted by poison one day and by the sword the next; he is exposed to as many dangers as there are men to whom he is dangerous, and he {412} is sometimes destroyed by the plots of individuals, and at others by a general insurrection. Whole communities are not roused to action by unimportant outrages on private persons; but cruelty which takes a wider range, and from which no one is safe, becomes a mark for all men’s weapons.
Minor Dialogues, passage 629
It is useful for a man to understand his disease, and to break its strength before it becomes developed. Let us see what it is that especially irritates us. Some men take offence at insulting words, others at deeds: one wishes his pedigree, another his person, to be treated with respect. This man wishes to be considered especially fashionable, that man to be thought especially learned: one cannot bear pride, another cannot bear obstinacy.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1936
It was this clemency which made him end his days in safety and security: this it was which rendered him popular and beloved, although he had laid his hands on the neck of the Romans when they were still unused to bearing the yoke: this gives him even at the present day a reputation such as hardly any prince has enjoyed during his own lifetime. We believe him to be a god, and not merely because we are bidden to do so.
Minor Dialogues, passage 389
Anger is that which goes beyond reason and carries her away with it: wherefore the first confusion of a man’s mind when struck by what seems an injury is no more anger than the apparent injury itself: it is the subsequent mad rush, which not only receives the impression of the apparent injury, but acts upon it as true, that is anger, being an exciting of the mind to revenge, which proceeds from choice and deliberate resolve.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1307
Next we must form an estimate of the matter which we mean to deal with, and compare our strength {265} with the deed we are about to attempt: for the bearer ought always to be more powerful than his load: indeed, loads which are too heavy for their bearer must of necessity crush him: some affairs also are not so important in themselves as they are prolific and lead to much more business, which employments, as they involve us in new and various forms of work, ought to be refused.
Minor Dialogues, passage 887
Do you imagine that this man’s mourning knew no end, if the first day and the first shook could not drive him, though a father, away {180} from the public altar of the state, or cause him to mar the ceremony of dedication by words of ill omen? Worthy, indeed, of the most exalted priesthood was he who ceased not to revere the gods even when they were angry.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1017
Nothing, therefore, is more important than that we should not, like sheep, follow the flock that has gone before us, and thus proceed not whither we ought, but whither the rest are going. Now nothing gets us into greater troubles than our subservience to common rumour, and our habit of thinking that those things are best which are most generally received as such, of taking many counterfeits for truly good things, and of living not by reason but by imitation of others.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1582
Continual misfortune has this one advantage, that it ends by rendering callous those whom it is always scourging.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1151
“What?” say you, “do you give that you may receive again?” At any rate I do not give that I may throw my bounty away: what I give should be so placed that although I cannot ask for its return, yet it may be given back to me. A benefit should be invested in the same manner as a treasure buried deep in the earth, which you would not dig up unless actually obliged. Why, what opportunities of conferring benefits the mere house of a rich man affords?
Minor Dialogues, passage 193
will the wise man not approach doors which are kept by a surly porter?” Nay, if any need calls him thither, he will make trial of him, however fierce he may be, will tame him as one tames a dog by offering it food, and will not be enraged at having to expend entrance-money, reflecting that on certain bridges also one has to pay toll; in like fashion he will pay his fee to whoever farms this revenue of letting in visitors, for he knows that men are wont to buy whatever is offered for sale.[6] A man shows a poor spirit if he is pleased with himself for having answered the porter cavalierly, broken his staff, forced his way into his master’s presence, and demanded a whipping for him.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1824
XV. Why should I speak of the intimacy of the two Luculli, which was broken only by their death? or of the Pompeii?
Minor Dialogues, passage 671
He then tore the son whom the father had chosen into two halves, placed one on each side of the road, and, as it were, purified his army by means of this propitiatory victim. He therefore had the end which he deserved, being defeated, and his army scattered far and wide in utter rout, while he in the midst of it walked among the corpses of his soldiers, seeing on all sides the signs of his own overthrow.
Minor Dialogues, passage 628
Those who suffer from epilepsy know that the fit is coming on if their extremities become cold, their sight fails, their sinews tremble, their memory deserts them, and their head swims: they accordingly check the growing disorder by applying the usual remedies: they try to prevent the loss of their senses by smelling or tasting some drug; they battle against cold and stiffness of limbs by hot fomentations; or, if all remedies fail, they retire apart, and faint where no one sees them fall.
Minor Dialogues, passage 902
XVI. I know what you will say, “You quote men as examples: you forget that it is a woman that you are trying to console.” Yet who would say that nature has dealt grudgingly with the minds of women, and stunted their virtues? Believe me, they have the same intellectual power as men, {183} and the same capacity for honourable and generous action. If trained to do so, they are just as able to endure sorrow or labour.
Minor Dialogues, passage 689
XX. Thus, the king of the Persians cut off the noses of a whole nation in Syria, wherefore the place is called Rhinocolura. Do you think that he was merciful, because he did not cut their heads off altogether? no, he was delighted at {139} having invented a new kind of punishment.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1858
[1] “The Latins had four versions of Homer (Fabric, tom. i. 1. ii. ch. 3, p. 297), yet, in spite of the phraises of Seneca, Consol, ch. 26 (viii.), they appear to have been more successful in imitating than in translating the Greek poets.”—Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” ch. 41, ad init., note. Polybius had made a prose translation of Homer, and a prose paraphrase of Virgil.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1800
He did not receive the tidings of his son’s death as news: for what is there new in a man’s dying, when his whole life is merely a journey towards death? “When I begat him, I knew that he would die some day,” said he: and then he added, what showed even more wisdom and courage, “It was for this that I brought him up.” It is for this that we have all been brought up: every one who is brought into life is intended to die.
Minor Dialogues, passage 212
Besides, it is a sort of revenge to spoil a man’s {44} enjoyment of the insult he has offered to us; such men say, “Dear me, I suppose he did not understand it.” Thus the success of an insult lies in the sensitiveness and rage of the victim; hereafter the insulter will sometimes meet his match; some one will be found to revenge you also.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1883
If man, as they argue, seeks for quiet and repose, what virtue is there which is more agreeable to his nature than clemency, which loves peace and restrains him from violence? Now clemency becomes no one more than a king or a prince; for great power is glorious and admirable only when it is beneficent; since to be powerful only for mischief is the power of a pestilence.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1774
Your sorrow is most to be feared when you have retired to your own home: for as long as your divinity is before your eyes, it can find no means of access to you, but Caesar will possess your entire being; when you have left his presence, grief, as though it then had an opportunity of attack, will lie in ambush for you in your loneliness, and creep by degrees over your mind as it rests from its labours.
Minor Dialogues, passage 171
These matters chiefly affect the luxuriously-nurtured and prosperous; for those who are pressed by worse evils have no time to notice such things as these. Through excessive idleness, dispositions naturally weak and womanish and prone to indulge in fancies through want of real injuries are disturbed at these things, the greater part of which arise from misunderstanding.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1590
V. We are born to a comfortable position enough, if we {324} do not afterwards lose it: the aim of Nature has been to enable us to live well without needing a vast apparatus to enable us to do so: every man is able by himself to make himself happy.
Minor Dialogues, passage 670
Darius promised him more than he asked for, saying that he would allow all three to remain at home, and flung their dead bodies before their father’s eyes. He would have been harsh, had he taken them all to the war with him. How much more good-natured was Xerxes,[5] who, when Pythias, the father of five sons, begged for one to be excused from service, permitted him to choose which he wished for.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1011
[11] Lipsius points out that this idea is borrowed from the comic poet Antiphanes. See Meineke’s “Comic Fragments,” p. 3.
Minor Dialogues, passage 519
Think of everything, expect everything: even with men of good character something queer will crop up; human nature produces minds that are treacherous, ungrateful, greedy, and impious: when you are considering what any {107} man’s morals may be, think what those of mankind are. When you are especially enjoying yourself, be especially on your guard: when everything seems to you to be peaceful, be sure that mischief is not absent, but only asleep.
Minor Dialogues, passage 977
Besides the fact that everything that is future is uncertain, and the only certainty is that it is more likely to turn out ill than well, our spirits find the path to the Gods above easiest when it is soon allowed to leave the society of mankind, because it has then contracted fewest impurities to weigh it down: if set free before they become hardened worldlings, before earthly things have sunk too deep into them, they fly all the more lightly back to the place from whence they came, and all the more easily wash away the stains and defilements which they may have contracted.
Minor Dialogues, passage 414
Among the other misfortunes of humanity is this, that men’s intellects are confused, and they not only cannot help going wrong, but love to go wrong. To avoid being angry with individuals, you must pardon the whole mass, you must grant forgiveness to the entire human race. If you are angry with young and old men because they do wrong, you will be angry with infants also, for they soon will do wrong. Does any one become angry with children, who are too young to comprehend distinctions?
Minor Dialogues, passage 1405
Thus, I remember that great orator Asinius Pollio would not attend to any business after the tenth hour: he would not even read letters after that time for fear some new {286} trouble should arise, but in those two hours[10] used to get rid of the weariness which he had contracted during the whole day. Some rest in the middle of the day, and reserve some light occupation for the afternoon. Our ancestors, too, forbade any new motion to be made in the Senate after the tenth hour.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1340
we are all included in the same captivity, and even those who have bound us are bound themselves, unless you think that a chain on the left side is lighter to bear: one man may be bound by public {272} office, another by wealth: some have to bear the weight of illustrious, some of humble birth: some are subject to the commands of others, some only to their own: some are kept in one place by being banished thither, others by being elected to the priesthood.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1890
Such a misfortune will be the end of the peace of Rome, it will wreck the prosperity of this great people; the nation {386} will be free from this danger as long as it knows how to endure the reins: should it ever break them, or refuse to have them replaced if they were to fall off by accident, then this mighty whole, this complex fabric of government will fly asunder into many fragments, and the last day of Rome’s empire will be that upon which it forgets how to obey.
Minor Dialogues, passage 71
“But,” you say, “it is unjust that a good man should be enfeebled, or transfixed, or chained, while bad men swagger at large with a whole skin.” What! is it not unjust that brave men should bear arms, pass the night in camps, and stand on guard along the rampart with their wounds still bandaged, while within the city eunuchs and professional profligates live at their ease? what?
Minor Dialogues, passage 460
Neither should such men be over-fed: for if so, their bodies will swell, and their minds will swell with them. Such men ought to take exercise, stopping short, however, of fatigue, in order that their natural heat may be abated, but not exhausted, and their excess of fiery spirit may be worked off. Games also will be useful: for moderate pleasure relieves the mind and brings it to a proper balance.
Minor Dialogues, passage 837
As it is, you have altogether run into the other extreme, and, forgetting the better aspects of your lot, look only upon its worse side: you pay no attention to the pleasure you have had in your son’s society and your joyful meetings with him, the sweet caresses of his babyhood, the progress of his education: you fix all your attention upon that last scene of all: and to this, as though it were not shocking enough, you add every horror you can.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1308
Neither should you engage in anything from which you are not free to retreat: apply yourself to something which you can finish, or at any rate can hope to finish: you had better not meddle with those operations which grow in importance, while they are being transacted, and which will not stop where you intended them to stop.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1192
[6] _Sistrum_. A metallic rattle used by the Egyptians in celebrating the rites of Isis, &c.—Andrews.
Minor Dialogues, passage 1042
With them you may class men whose dull nature and want of self-knowledge reduces them to the level of cattle, mere animals: there is no difference between the one and the other, because the latter have no reason, while the former have only a corrupted form of it, crooked and cunning to their own hurt.