The man who has a house everywhere has a home nowhere

You wish to appear, Cotta, a pretty man and a great man at one and the same time: but he who is a pretty man, Cotta, is a very small man

Laugh, if thou art wise

You say, Senca, that you were violated by robbers, but the robbers deny it

Every man’s life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.

All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

The world is mere change, and this life, opinion.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, “Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?”...

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

For all their compliments do verses pay? They mayn’t, yet these same poems make me gay

You see these fish carved finely in relief by Phidian art? Add water; they will swim

If you want him to mourn, you had best leave him nothing

If it does not fit leave it, if it is not true do not say it.

I mean, you never know how these things are going to go, but I always want to be prepared that I have everything in order so if I need to go then I can. Because,...

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too...

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

Tis easy to write epigrams nicely but to write a book is hard

Since you are so well matched, and so much alike – a very bad wife, and a very bad husband – I wonder that you do not agree

So great is the modesty of your mind and face, Sophronius that I wonder you should ever have become a father

Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst

Salvation: to see each thing for what it is— its nature and its purpose.To do only what is right, say only what is true, without holding back.What else could it be but to live life...

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s...

We should remark the grace and fascination that there is even in the incidentals of Nature’s processes.. When a loaf of bread,. for instance,. is in the oven,. crack appear in it here and there;...

A person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values.

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

To them that ask, ‘Where have you seen the gods, or how do you know for certain there are gods, that you are so devout in their worship?’ I answer, ‘Neither have I ever seen...

He who prefers to give to Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half

A good man is always a beginner

It is a mistake to think that Acerra reeks of yesterday’s liquor: Acerra always drinks till next morning

You ask me, Linus what my field out at Nomentum is to yield? Well this it yields to me: the view, my Linus, has no sign of you

Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the...

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

When you run up against someone else’s shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible?No. Then don’t ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of...

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body yet endures

[This event is frankly too big to have opinions about. All I can think to do is point to one of my all-time favorite college quotes:] Think of destiny, … and how puny a part...

Consider that thou dost not even understand whether men are doing wrong or not, for many things are done with a certain reference to circumstance. And, in short, a man must learn a great deal...

Philo declares he never dines at home, and that is no exaggeration: He has no place whereat to dine in Rome, Unless he hooks an invitation

The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

That which has died falls not out of the universe. If it stays here, it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are elements of the universe and of thyself. And...

A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever...

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.