Tis true I know what evil I shall do but passion overpowers the better council.
For sheep don’t throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested. 47.
It isn’t events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgments about them.
When, therefore, you see anyone eminent in honors, or power, or in high esteem on any other account, take heed not to be hurried away with the appearance, and to pronounce him happy; for, if the essence of good consists in things in our own control, there will be no room for envy or emulation. But, for your part, don’t wish to be a general, or a senator, or a consul, but to be free;.
Yes, but my nose is running.’ Then what do you have hands for, you slave?
But first consider how much more sparing and patient of hardship the poor are than we.
Is it not the same distance to God everywhere?
What makes for freedom and fluency in the practice of writing? Knowledge of how to write. The same goes for the practice of playing an instrument. It follows that, in the conduct of life, there must be a science to living well.
Only consider at what price you sell your own will: if for no other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum.
At feasts, remember that you are entertaining two guests, body and soul. What you give to the body, you presently lose; what you give to the soul, you keep for ever.
If then all things that grow, nay, our own bodies, are thus bound up with the whole, is not this still truer of our souls? And if our souls are bound up and in contact with God, as being very parts and fragments plucked from Himself, shall He not feel every movement of theirs as though it were His own, and belonging to His own nature?
Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself. See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.
Seek not for events to happen as you wish but rather wish for events to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly.
What would Heracles have been if he had said, “How am I to prevent a big lion from appearing, or a big boar, or brutal men?” What care you, I say? If a big boar appears, you will have a greater struggle to engage in; if evil men appear, you will free the world from evil men.
You only have to doze a moment, and all is lost. For ruin and salvation both have their source inside you.
Do not wish that all things will go well with you, but that you will go well with all things.
If you meet temptation, use self-control; if you meet pain, use fortitude; if you meet revulsion, use patience.
Man, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable.
You are the one who knows yourself – which is to say, you know how much you are worth in your own estimation, and therefore at what price you will sell yourself; because people sell themselves at different rates.
Taking account of the value of externals, you see, comes at some cost to the value of one’s own character.