Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance – now, at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.
Try to live the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allocated to him.
That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.
Truth and ceremony are two things.
When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, endeavor to rouse your faculties, and act up to your kind, and consider that you have to do the business of a man; and that action is both beneficial and the end of your being.
That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.
Vex not thy spirit at the course of things, they heed not thy vexations.
Remember: Matter: how tiny your share of it. Time: how brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate: how small a role you play in it.
If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from eternity?
Nature in no case cometh short of art, for the arts are copiers of natural forms.
Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.
From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason.
In the same degree in which a man’s mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.
The one thing worth living for is to keep one’s soul pure.
Take away the complaint, ‘I have been harmed,’ and the harm is taken away.
Live with the gods. And he does so who constantly shows them that his soul is satisfied with what is assigned to him.
Remember that all is opinion.
Man is born for deeds of kindness.
The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else...
Whoever values peace of mind and the health of the soul will live the best of all possible lives.