It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, playwright and adviser to the emperor Nero, who eventually ordered him to take his own life. He is best known for the Letters to Lucilius and the essay On the Shortness of Life, in which he writes about time, mortality and his own failings plainly and without ornament. His work has stayed in circulation almost without interruption for two millennia.
About this theme: Resilience
Resilience has travelled a long way in twenty years, from a term in psychology to a word on posters. It originally described something measurable: a system's capacity to return to equilibrium after a shock. Applied to people it never meant being unaffected — it meant recovering, and that distinction is the first casualty of popular use.
More by Seneca
More on Resilience
- Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.— Publilius Syrus
- The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.— Confucius
- Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.— Ovid
- I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.— Louisa May Alcott
- Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve.— Leonardo da Vinci