Thou seest how few be the things, the which if a man has at his command his life flows gently on and is divine.
Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.
Let every action aim solely at the common good.
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.
I am called to man’s labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?
Failure to read what is happening in another’s soul is not easily seen as a cause of unhappiness: but those who fail to attend the motions of their own soul are necessarily unhappy.
All is Ephemeral, fame and the famous as well.
Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendour until it is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and temperance be extinguished before thy death?
How powerful is man! He is able to do all that God wishes him to do. He is able to accept all that God sends upon him.
Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.
Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment, as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise.
We are born for synergy, just like the feet, just like the hands, just like the eyes, just like the rows of upper and lower teeth. Working against each other is unnatural, and being annoyed and turning one’s back is counterproductive.
Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.
Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.
Do not look to anything, not even for a moment, except reason.
The honest and good man ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.
Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the motion of virtue is in none of these: it is something more divine, and advancing by a way hardly observed it goes happily on its road.
My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature – the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.