However wretched a fellow-mortal may be, he is still a member of our common species.
What must be shall be; and that which is a necessity to him that struggles, is little more than choice to him that is willing.
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.
You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.
Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the wicked; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law.
To the stars through difficulties.
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.