His head was turned by too great success.
Fortune can take away riches, but not courage...
A foolishness is inflicted with a hatred of itself.
That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty.
Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
Philosophy’s power to blunt all the blows of circumstance is beyond belief.
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.