Poverty in a democracy is as much to be preferred to what is called prosperity under despots, as freedom is to slavery.
Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; but in reality atoms and the void alone exist.
If you would know contentment, let your deeds be few.
Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness.
We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.
There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.
Soul and intellect are just the same things.
All things happen by virtue of necessity.
Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.
These differences, they say, are three: shape, arrangement, and position; because they hold that what is differs only in contour, inter-contact, inclination.
Nature and education are somewhat similar. The latter transforms man, and in so doing creates a second nature.
By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.
Nature and teaching are closely related; for teaching reforms a person, and by reforming remakes his nature.
Men ask for health in their prayers to the gods: they do not realize that the power to achieve it lies in themselves. Lacking self-control, they perform contrary actions and betray health to their desires.
One man means as much to me as a multitude, and a multitude only as much as one man.
We know nothing truly about anything, but for each of us opining is a rearrangement of soul atoms.
If the body were to take the soul to court for the pains and suffering it had endured throughout its life, then if he were to be on the jury for the case he would gladly cast his vote against the soul inasmuch as it had destroyed some parts of the body by negligence or dissipated them by drunkenness, and had ruined and ravaged other parts by its pursuit of pleasures – just as he would blame the careless user if a tool or utensil were in a bad condition.
Todos los hombres culpan a la naturaleza y al destino, pero su destino es sobre todo el eco de su caracter y de sus pasiones, sus errores y debilidades.
To a wise man, the whole earth is open, because the country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.
A life without festivity is a long road without an inn.
Boldness is the beginning of action, but fortune controls how it ends.