The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all other advantages.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite conditions

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.