Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers.
The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.
It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.
Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.
Fire proves gold, adversity proves men.
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself.
What a great blessing is a friend with a heart so trusty you may safely bury all your secrets in it.
There is the need for someone against which our characters can measure themselves. Without a ruler, you won’t make the crooked straight.
We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
Everything hangs on one’s thinking.
The place one’s in, though, doesn’t make any contribution to peace of mind: it’s the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself.
What’s the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then.
There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly.
Behold a contest worthy of a god, a brave man matched in conflict with adversity.
We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.