That poverty is no disaster is understood by everyone who has not yet succumbed to the madness of greed and luxury that turns everything topsy-turvy.
You cannot, I repeat, successfully acquire it and preserve your modesty at the same time.
Let no man give advice to others that he has not first given himself.
What with our hooks, snares, nets, and dogs, we are at war with all living creatures, and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too cheap or too common; and all this is to gratify a fantastical palate.
Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.
Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.
It is extreme evil to depart from the company of the living before you die.
Life is a gift of the immortal Gods, but living well is the gift of philosophy.
This is the reason we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will.
Leisure without literature is death, or rather the burial of a living man -Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura.
Chance makes a plaything of a man’s life.
Speech devoted to truth should be straightforward and plain.
He who seeks wisdom is a wise man; he who thinks he has found it is mad.
If wisdom were offered me with this restriction, that I should keep it close and not communicate it, I would refuse the gift.
Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.
Those whom fortune has never favored are more joyful than those whom she has deserted.
If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him. Ignoranti quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est.
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
Nature ever provides for her own exigencies.
Nature does not turn out her work according to a single pattern; she prides herself upon her power of variation...