I could do without your face, Chloe, and without your neck, and your hands, and your limbs, and to save myself the trouble of mentioning the points in detail, I could do without you altogether

The time of a man’s life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. His soul is restless, fortune uncertain,...

The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.

If all emotions are common coin, then what is unique to the good man?To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. Not to stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of...

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered

Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.

A cucumber is bitter.’ Throw it away. ‘There are briars in the road.’ Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, ‘And why were such things made in the world?

With red hair, a black face, a cloven foot, and blear eyes, you show the world a prodigy, Zoilus, if you are an honest man

The one who lives the longest and the one who lives the shortest, when it comes to dying lose one and the same thing.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

If the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to...

Nothing is more scandalous than a man that is proud of his humility.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.

Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life – there, if one must speak out, the real man.

Rest lightly on her earth, for she trod never heavily on thee

Life is not merely being alive, but being well

Remember this, – that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life

The man of ambition thinks to find his good in the operations of others; the man of pleasure in his own sensations; but the man of understanding in his own actions.

Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.

Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the...

We are the other of the other

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike

Nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Light may earth’s crumbling sand be laid on thee, that dogs may dig thy bones up easily

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans

Be content to seem what you really are

striid andWthdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm.

Even the least of our activities ought to have some end in view.

No more roundabout discussions of what makes a good man. Be one!

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

“The robber of your free will,” writes Epictetus, “does not exist

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being...

There is no living with thee, nor without thee

Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence part is already extinguished

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not “This is misfortune,” but “To bear this worthily is good fortune.

And so accept everything that happens, even if it is disagreeable, because it leads to this, to the health of the universe and to the prosperity and felicity of Zeus

Will any man despise me? Let him see to it. But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that deserves to be despised.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and...

Do you make a grievance of weighing so many pounds only instead of three hundred? Then why fret about living so many years only, instead of more? Since you are content with the measure of...

It is false to say that you are a vicious man, Zoilus; you are not a vicious man, you are vice itself