Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.

If you don't have a consistent goal in life, you can't live it in a consistent way."

That to expect bad people not to injure others is crazy. It's to ask the impossible. And to let them behave like that to other people but expect them to exempt you is arrogant-the act of a tyrant.

Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger.

How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them.

A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you're in the same room with him, you know it.

The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not.

Someone despises me. That's their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them.

There is no nature which is inferior to art, the arts imitate the nature of things.

Remember this, then, that this little compound, thyself, must either be dissolved, or thy poor breath must be extinguished, or be removed and placed elsewhere.

Thou sufferest justly: for thou choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.

Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.

Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.

Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the beginning and the continuance, just like a man who throws up a ball. What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come down... what good is it to the bubble while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst?

Where have they gone, the brilliant, the insightful ones, the proud?

It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man.

There are three relations [between thee and other things]: the one to the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.

To accept it without arrogance, to let it go with indifference.

Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity... yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. ...he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal ...he has allowed him to be returned and to be united and to resume his place as a part.

As the nature of the universal has given to every rational being all the powers that it has, so we have received from it this power also. For as the universal nature converts and fixes in its predestined place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purpose as it may have designed.

Remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this.

If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before. Remember that to change thy opinion and to follow him who corrects thy error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in thy error.

Constantly and, if it be possible, on the occasion of every impression on the soul, apply to it the principles of Physic, of Ethic, and of Dialectic.

Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy destiny. For what is more suitable?

Why then dost thou choose to act in the same way? and why dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of things which happen to thee? for then thou wilt use them well, and they will be material for thee. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou doest; and remember...

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

The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected.

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to keep this in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.

In the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid thee, that the pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if thou bear in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination…

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing - here is perfection of character.

It's silly to try to escape other people's faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.

The nature of the All moved to make the universe.

On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.

You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.

Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee. Variant: Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly.

In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance.

The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.

He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit.

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.

And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.

Objective judgment, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance-now, at this very moment-of all external events. That's all you need.

Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.

Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions-not outside.

All things are the same,-familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.

The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.

All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.