Seneca - On The Shortness of Life (Stoic Quotes)

This is a collection of Stoic quotes from Seneca and his essay On The Shortness of Life.

The philosophy of Stoicism and Stoic quotes can provide a massive source of motivation and life direction. The philosophy is one of practicality, and focuses on the question: How can we find a path to happiness (which the stoics called eudaimonia)?

It was a philosophy for the everyday men and women of the world, not just for educated aristocrats or isolated philosophers in their halls of books, and sages up their mountains.

For the Stoics, their practical path to eudaimonia (happiness) is grounded in a few core principles:

The ability to view ourselves, the world, and it’s people objectively and accept their nature as it is.

The discipline to prevent ourselves from being controlled by the desire for pleasure or the fear of pain and suffering

Making the distinction between what is within our power to influence, and what is not. Using this information we act on what can be acted upon, and we dismiss what can’t.

Stoic philosophy was used by anyone from the soldiers of the ancient world, all the way up to the emperor Marcus Aurelius himself. Growing to become one of the most prominent philosophies of Greece and Rome.

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#stoicism #stoic #marcusaurelius

[OrionPhilosophy]

Hey guys, thanks for listening! You can find more practical philosophy and wisdom in the playlists below:

[MrDinko]

Currently working my way through "Seneca - Letters From A Stoic" so It's perfect timing with this video :)

[Trigramz]

Love these! Would be awesome if they're longer. Becomes like a meditation listening to them. Thanks for doing these!

[eternalkhajiit]

I love this channel dont ever let it die

[vdelailovu]

Awesome background music and voices on start! Great!

[gavgiiuktvii]

Thankyou for your Time And Energy God Bless You 💎

[maximelagace]

""The day a man becomes superior to pleasure, he will also be superior to pain." -Seneca

[swopniladhikari]

Can someone tell me the audio name which was played at first of earth?

[codehere]

Hey where did You find the images of the music vídeo?

[Thank-u-so-much-for-everything]

1. The majority of mortals, Paulinus1
, complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because
we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes
by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are
getting ready to live… It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.
Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the
accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is
squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the
ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was
passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of
it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it
comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good
guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

2. Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it,
is long. But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome
devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by
sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others,
another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of
gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting
danger upon others or concerned about their own; some are worn out by voluntary servitude in
a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men's
fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant
and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no
fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and
yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the
greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: "The part of life we really live is
small." For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time. Vices beset us and surround us
on every side, and they do not permit us to rise anew and lift up our eyes for the discernment
of truth, but they keep us down when once they have overwhelmed us and we are chained to
lust… Think you that I am speaking of the wretches whose evils are admitted? Look at those
whose prosperity men flock to behold; they are smothered by their blessings. To how many are
riches a burden! From how many do eloquence and the daily straining to display their powers
draw forth blood! How many are pale from constant pleasures! To how many does the throng
of clients that crowd about them leave no freedom!...

there are more 20 points read

[hectorbenavides]

I need to know the name of the person reading, his voice is perfect

[raginaldmars]

my Life is so SHORT -
I can not watch this
no time

[JoeZenArt]

Hope can be Hopeless when the unknown lurks.

[estoicismobr]

And we think we are smarter than the ancients... Think again my friend.

[JoeZenArt]

Life is shorter if its buffet confuses you.

[keatongrout]

So if we shouldn't waste our time then what should we be spending our time on?

[JoeZenArt]

Always remembering that 30% of life is sleeping.

[JoeZenArt]

Existence has many reasons for fickleness.