Use.

And do you know why we have not the power to attain this Stoic ideal? It is because we refuse to believe in our power. Nay, of a surety, there is something else which plays a part: it is because we are in love with our vices; we uphold them and prefer to make excuses for them rather than shake them off. We mortals have been endowed with sufficient strength by nature, if only we use this strength, if only we concentrate our powers and rouse them all to help us or at least not to hinder us. The reason is unwillingness, the excuse, inability.

Seneca, from Letters from a Stoic

Realize.

Rubens, Bust of Pseudo-Seneca, 1626

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, from Letters from a Stoic

Culture.

Seneca said, "Acts of cruelty are often a manifestation of personal insecurity or a lack of inner strength, rather than a sign of true power."

Dating back to the days of Woody Hayes, the legacy of Ohio’s thug culture (players and fans) endures. 

Leadership dictates culture.  What is permitted is promoted.

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”

Peter Drucker

Beautiful.

Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.

Seneca

It's beautiful, it's like a bird humming.

Excellent.

An excellent documentary ...

All cruelty springs from fear.

Seneca 

Stir.

According to the disposition of the state and the liberty allowed us, we shall either extend or contract our activities; but at all events we shall stir ourselves and not be gripped and paralyzed by fear. He indeed will prove a man who, threatened by dangers on all sides, with arms and chains clattering around him, will neither endanger nor conceal his courage: for self-preservation does not entail suppressing oneself. Truly, I believe, Curius Dentatus used to say that he preferred real death to living death; for the ultimate horror is to leave the number of the living before you die.

Seneca

Steeled.

Evans, Crown Street Children, 1933

Seneca's thoughts on noise ...

“You must be made of iron,” you may say, “or else hard of hearing if your mind is unaffected by all this babel of discordant noises around you, when continual ‘good morning’ greetings were enough to finish off the Stoic Chrysippus!” But I swear I no more notice all this roar of noise than I do the sound of waves or falling water—even if I am here told the story of a people on the Nile who moved their capital solely because they could not stand the thundering of a cataract! Voices, I think, are more inclined to distract one than general noise; noise merely fills one’s ears, battering away at them while voices actually catch one’s attention. Among the things which create a racket all around me without distracting me at all I include the carriages hurrying by in the street, the carpenter who works in the same block, a man in the neighbourhood who saws, and this fellow tuning horns and flutes and the Trickling Fountain and emitting blasts instead of music. I still find an intermittent noise more irritating than a continuous one. But by now I have so steeled myself against all these things that I can even put up with a coxswain’s strident tones as he gives his oarsmen the rhythm. For I force my mind to become self-absorbed and not let outside things distract it. There can be absolute bedlam without so long as there is no commotion within, so long as fear and desire are not at loggerheads, so long as meanness and extravagance are not at odds and harassing each other. For what is the good of having silence throughout the neighbourhood if one’s emotions are in turmoil?

The peaceful stillness of the night had lulled

The world to rest.

Had.

Rubens, Bust of Pseudo-Seneca, 1626

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, from Letters from a Stoic

Servitude.

All life is servitude. And so a man must become reconciled to his lot, must complain of it as little as possible, and must lay hold of whatever good it may have; no state is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find in its some consolation.  Apply reason to difficulties; it is possible to soften what is hard, to widen what is narrow, and burdens will press less heavily upon those who bear them skillfully.

Seneca

Learning.

No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it. Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man; yet there is nothing which is harder to learn… Learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die.

It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New preoccupations take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. They do not look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it.

Indeed the state of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but the most wretched are those who are toiling not even at their own preoccupations, but must regulate their sleep by another’s, and their walk by another’s pace, and obey orders in those freest of all things, loving and hating. If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.

Seneca

All.

Desire..

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. The greater part of progress is the desire to progress. 

Seneca

Begin.

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.  It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.  The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject.  And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them. Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.

Seneca