It is not how many books thou hast, but how good; careful reading profiteth, while that which is full of variety delighteth.
I would rather be sick than idle.
Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by actions.
A man who has taken your time recognises no debt; yet it is the one he can never repay.
Many person might have achieved wisdom had they not supposed that they already possessed it.
Good sides to adversity are best admired at a distance.
Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure, if you know how to use it. The best morsel is reserved for last.
If thou wishest to get rid of thy evil propensities, thou must keep far from evil companions.
Such is the blindness, nay the insanity of mankind, that some men are driven to death by the fear of it.
Eternal law has arranged nothing better than this, that it has given us one way in to life, but many ways out.
Plato once wanted to punish one of his slaves and asked his nephew to do the actual whipping for he himself did not own his anger.
A thousand approaches lie open to death.
The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you give it only what you owe, and not as much as you can.
The highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom – that deed and word should be in accord.
The thing that matters is not what you bear, but how you bear it.
I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs, especially my own affairs; I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them.
For what else is Nature but God and the Divine Reason that pervades the whole universe and all its parts.
Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.
The person you are matters more than the place to which you go.
Let us bear with magnanimity whatever it is needful for us to bear.