Q0103

Seneca

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Man is a sacred thing to man.
Thinker Seneca
School Stoicism
Source Letters to Lucilius (on humanity)
Theme Dignity
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Letters to Lucilius (on humanity), within the tradition of Stoicism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of dignity, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Seneca's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Seneca. (n.d.). Man is a sacred thing to man. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0103

MLA: Seneca. “Man is a sacred thing to man..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0103.

Chicago: Seneca. “Man is a sacred thing to man..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0103.

Same thinker

More from Seneca

  1. It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
  2. Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.
  3. There are more things that frighten us than crush us, and we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
  4. All else belongs to others; time alone is ours.
  5. If you wish to be loved, love.

All quotations by Seneca

Same theme

More on dignity

  1. Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
  2. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.
  3. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
  4. I rebel — therefore we exist.
  5. There are more things to admire in men than to despise.

Browse the dignity theme