That he respected tradition without needing to constantly congratulate himself for safeguarding our traditional values.

To be the same in all circumstances – intense pain, the loss of a child, chronic illness. And to see clearly, from his example, that a man can show both strength and flexility.

Do not let your thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles that you may expect to befall you: but on every occasion ask yourself, “What is there in this that is intolerable and past bearing?” For you will be ashamed to confess.

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.

Let it make no difference to you whether you are cold or warm, if you are doing your duty; and whether you are drowsy or satisfied with sleep; and whether ill-spoken of or praised; and whether dying or doing something else.

Remember this, that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

If then there is an invincible necessity, why do you resist?

For all their compliments do verses pay? They mayn’t, yet these same poems make me gay.

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.

If you learn that someone is speaking ill of you, don’t try to defend yourself against the rumours; respond instead with, ‘Yes, and he doesn’t know the half of it, because he could have said more’.

Life is fragile. We’re not guaranteed a tomorrow so give it everything you’ve got.

Each day provides its own gifts. 

If someone responds to insult like a rock, what has the abuser gained with his invective?

He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon.

Let us overlook many things in those who are like antagonists in the gymnasium. For it is in our power, as I said, to get out of the way and to have no suspicion or hatred.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

It is just charming how people boast about qualities beyond their control. For instance, ‘I am better than you because I have many estates, while you are practically starving’; or, ‘I’m a consul,’ ‘I’m a governor,’ or ‘I have fine curly hair.’

How strangely men act. They will not praise those who are living at the same time and living with themselves; but to be themselves praised by posterity, by those whom they have never seen or ever will see, this they set much value on.

“A cucumber is bitter.” Throw it away. “There are briars in the road.” Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, “And why were such things made in the world?”

Always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a speck of semen tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.

Under no circumstances ever say ‘I have lost something,’ only ‘I returned it.

Do you have reason? I have. Why then do you not use it?

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.

Have I been made for this, to lie under the blankets and keep myself warm?

‘But I get to wear a crown of gold.’ If you have your heart set on wearing crowns, why not make one out of roses – you will look even more elegant in that.

Who exactly are these people that you want to be admired by? Aren’t they the same people you are in the habit of calling crazy? And is this your life ambition, then – to win the approval of lunatics?

Consider what men are when they are eating, sleeping, coupling, evacuating, and so forth. Then what kind of men they are when they are imperious and arrogant, or angry and scolding from their elevated place.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks. 

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

Do little, if you want contentment of mind.

Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.

To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice.

If something does not make a person worse in himself, neither does it make his life worse, nor does it harm him without or within.

Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful – and hence neither good nor bad.

A rock is thrown in the air. It loses nothing by coming down, gained nothing by going up.

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

The present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose something he does not already possess.

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

Don’t believe your situation is genuinely bad – no one can make you do that. Is there smoke in the house? If it’s not suffocating, I will stay indoors; if it proves too much, I’ll leave. Always remember – the door is open.

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

Someone bathes in haste; don’t say he bathes badly, but in haste. Someone drinks a lot of wine; don’t say he drinks badly, but a lot. Until you know their reasons, how do you know that their actions are vicious?

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in your power. Take away then, when you choose, your opinion, and like a mariner who has rounded the headland, you will find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.

The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.

The flaw which is hidden is deemed greater than it is.

Glory paid to our ashes comes too late.