We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed! What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired?
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and accountability in personal growth.
Seneca the Elder encourages individuals to engage in nightly self-reflection, assessing their personal growth by evaluating the challenges they faced, the temptations they resisted, and the virtues they developed. This practice not only fosters self-awareness but also strengthens one's character and moral resolve, promoting continuous improvement in the pursuit of a virtuous life.
In practice
A mentor sharing this quote with mentees during a workshop on personal development.
We 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.
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.
The sun also shines on the wicked.
Let us be brave in the face of adversity.
The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.
What you think about yourself is much more important than what others think of you.
You see, in this world there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.
Mind precedes all phenomena, mind matters most, everything is mind-made. If with an impure mind, you speak or act, then suffering follows you as the cartwheel follows the foot of the draft animal. If with a pure mind, you speak or act, then happiness follows you as a shadow that never departs
What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?
We discover that we do not know our role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and real. But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouth are bent. And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.
The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top
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