Here’s a lesson to test your mind’s mettle: take part of a week in which you have only the most meager and cheap food, dress scantly in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead, for when Fortune is kind the soul can build defenses against her ravages. So it is that soldiers practice maneuvers in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes they won’t grow tired.

More quotes by Seneca

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"It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult."

- Seneca

Courage

"When one has lost a friend, one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation."

- Seneca

Relationships

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

- Seneca

Success

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end."

- Seneca

New Beginnings

"A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature."

- Seneca

Happiness

More Resilience Quotes

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"We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

Resilience

"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

Resilience

"Criticism is the best sign you’re onto something."

- Michael Lopp

Resilience

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."

- David Brinkley

Resilience

"We are really competing against ourselves. We have no control over how other people perform."

- Pete Cashmore

Resilience