In other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is a vice.

For in every ill-turn of fortune the most unhappy sort of unfortunate man is the one who has been happy

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.

Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior.

If there is anything good about nobility it is that it enforces the necessity of avoiding degeneracy.

One's virtue is all that one truly has, because it is not imperiled by the vicissitudes of fortune.

I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.