The nature of the All moved to make the universe.
A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.
Do not suffer a sudden impression to overbear your judgment.
Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.
Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?
Be mindful at all times of the following: the nature of the whole universe, the nature of the part that is me, the relation of the one to the other, the one so vast, the other so small.
I bless the gods for not letting my education in rhetoric, poetry, and other literary studies come easily to me, and thereby sparing me from an absorbing interest in these subjects.
I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and expire into that air which has given me my daily breath.
Not even the vicissitudes of fortune are contrary to nature or to the providential ordering of the universe. It all flows from the gods, who determine what is needed for the welfare of the whole universe, of which you are a part.
The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
Death, like birth, is one of nature’s mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.
Death – a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.
Praise adds nothing to beauty – makes it neither better nor worse.
Your manners will depend very much upon the quality of what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the colour and complexion of thought.
It is a disgrace to let ignorance and vanity do more with us than prudence and principle.
It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care not about it.
The gods sustain and guide all their works.
Nature insists on whatever benefits the whole.
We must press on then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.
Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?