Quotes

In the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bear in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination...

To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing – here is perfection of character.

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the beginning and the continuance, just like a man who throws up a ball. What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come down... what good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

Remember this, then, that this little compound, thyself, must either be dissolved, or they poor breath must be extinguished, or be removed and placed elsewhere.

There are three relations [between thee and other things]: the one to the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.

As the nature of the universal has given to every rational being all the powers that it has, so we have received from it this power also. For as the universal nature converts and fixes in its predestined place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purpose as it may have designed.

If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.

The things... which are proper to the understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron, nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a sphere, it continues a sphere.