Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.
Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.
Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.
Neither worse than or better is a thing made by being praised.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.
Wilt thou, then, my soul, never be good and simple and one and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds thee?
The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.
Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul?
Unhappy am I because this has happened to me.- Not so, but happy am I, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.
Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.
Though you break your heart, men will go on as before.
We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.
If man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.
It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never intentionally given pain even to another.
Flinch not, neither give up nor despair, if the achieving of every act in accordance with right principle is not always continuous with thee.
The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!
He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.
All things are the same, familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.
It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.