O slavish man! will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his Father, as being a son from the same stock, and of the same high descent? But if you chance to be placed in some superior station, will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.

Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control.

If the room is smoky, if only moderately, I will stay; if there is too much smoke I will go. Remember this, keep a firm hold on it, the door is always open.

In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.

If you would be a good reader, read; if a writer, write.

Every habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running.

What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

Be bold to look towards God and say, "Use me henceforward for whatever you want; I am of one mind with you; I am yours; I refuse nothing that seems good to you; lead me where you will; wrap me in what clothes you will."

Why, then, do we wonder any longer that, although in material things we are thoroughly experienced, nevertheless in our actions we are dejected, unseemly, worthless, cowardly, unwilling to stand the strain, utter failures one and all? .

When I see someone in anxiety, I say to myself, What can it be that this fellow wants? For if he did not want something that was outside of his control, how could he still remain in anxiety? Book II, ch. 13, § 1.

Look now, this is the starting point of philosophy: the recognition that different people have conflicting opinions, the rejection of mere opinion so that it comes to be viewed with mistrust, an investigation of opinion to determine whether it is rightly held, and the discovery of a standard of judgement, comparable to the balance that we have devised for the determining of weights, or the carpenter's rule for determining whether things are straight or crooked.

Although life is a matter of indifference, the use which you make of it is not a matter of indifference.

Materials are indifferent, but the use which we make of them is not a matter of indifference.

Show that you know this only, how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid.

For on these matters we should not trust the multitude who say that none ought to be educated but the free, but rather to philosophers, who say that the educated alone are free. Variant: ...Only the educated are free.

For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction. For where a child has knowledge, he is no worse than we are.

For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death. Variant: For death or pain is not formidable, but the fear of pain or death.

For what is lacking now is not quibbles; nay, the books of the Stoics are full of quibbles.

The essence of the good is a certain kind of moral purpose, and that of the evil is a certain kind of moral purpose.

For human beings, the measure of every action is the impression of the senses.

To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.