He who has equipped himself for the whole of life does not need to be advised concerning each separate thing, because he is now trained to meet his problem as a whole; for he knows not merely how he should live with his wife or his son, but how he should live aright.

The life of men," he says, "who pass their time in the midst of affairs, and who wish to be helpful to themselves and to others, is exposed to constant and almost daily troubles and sudden dangers. To guard against and avoid these one needs a mind that is always ready and alert, such as the athletes have who are called 'pancratists.'

One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist.

Wait for death with a cheerful mind. For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

Nature gave us reason, in order that it might survey everything else, and, together with all things, or rather prior to all things, might direct its attention to Nature herself.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.

Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in which we lay before we were born. If anyone pities the dead, he ought also to pity those who have not been born. Death is neither a good nor a bad thing, for that alone which is something can be a good or a bad thing: but that which is nothing, and reduces all things to nothing, does not hand us over to either fortune, because good and bad require some material to work upon. Fortune cannot take ahold of that which Nature has let go, nor can a man be unhappy if he is nothing.

He who is free in the body, but bound in the soul is a slave; but on the contrary he who is bound in the body, but free in the soul, is truly free.

No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

Virtue is the health of the soul.

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

The Fates guide the person who accepts them and hinder the person who resists them.

For are not even savage animals, and such as are naturally most hostile to our race, and who are taken away by violence, and at first are detained by chains, and confined in iron cages, are rot these afterwards rendered mild by a certain mode of treatment, and by daily supplying them with food? And will not the man who is a brother, or even any casual person, who deserves attention in a much greater degree than a brute, be changed to milder manners by proper treatment, though he should not entirely forsake his rusticity? In our behaviour, therefore, towards every man, and in a much greater degree towards a brother, we should imitate the reply of Socrates to one who said to him, "May I die unless I am revenged on you." For his answer was, "May I die, if I do not make you my friend."

If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied philosophy.

Living virtuously is equal to living in accordance with one's experience of the actual course of nature

This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole, and what is my nature.

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it.

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and troubled.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

No form of God is conceivable.

The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul.

There is one great law throughout nature.

It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

A good mind is a lord of a kingdom.