He is so rich, he has no room to shit.

There is no glory in outstripping donkeys

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.

Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died, furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’ ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and immortality....

Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

The present joys of life we doubly taste by looking back with pleasure on the past

All is ephemeral, – fame and the famous as well

Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good

Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest, and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of, and...

Whatever may befall thee, it was preordained for thee from everlasting

And in the case of superior things like stars, we discover a kind of unity in separation. The higher we rise on the scale of being, the easier it is to discern a connection even...

What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.

How good it is, when you have roast meat or suchlike foods before you, to impress on your mind that this is the dead body of a fish, this the dead body of a bird...

Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

He misses what is meant by epigram – who thinks it only frivolous flimflam

Good men make life a twofold span to last: Twice does he live who can enjoy his past

Socrates gave as his reason for declining an invitation to the court of Perdiccas, “I have no wish to go down to my grave with ignominy;” implying that he would accept no favor which he...

Gifts are like hooks

I think if we had the same magnitude of devastation that they had, we would be very much challenged as well,

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men’s badness, which is impossible.

There’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

Some good, some so-so, and lots plain bad: that’s how a book of poems is made, my friend

Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.

Your face is black, your hair like flame, And one eye’s damaged, one foot lame: If, still, you’re quite decent chap – Well ’tis a feather in your cap

How strangely men act. They will not praise those who are living at the same time and living with themselves; but to be themselves praised by posterity, by those whom they have never seen or...

Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature,that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so securestranquility.

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present – I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the...

Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is...

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

Take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, ‘I have been harmed.’ Take away the complaint, ‘I have been harmed,’ and the harm is taken away.

Take full account of what excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

The perfumes at our board last night – Were exquisite, I won’t deny it, But we were starved, we were outright, For meat, could no how come by it

Death is a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of...

What am I but a little flesh, a little breath, and the thinking part that rules the whole?

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant,...

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

All things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle

Everyman’s life lies within the present, for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain