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

Whose happiness is so firmly established that he has no quarrel from any side with his estate of life?

Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it - even if we so desired.

In every kind of adversity, the bitterest part of a man's affliction is to remember that he once was happy.

Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of concupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good. Don't you agree?

As far as possible, join faith to reason.

Wretched men cringe before tyrants who have no power, the victims of their trivial hopes and fears. They do not realise that anger is hopeless, fear is pointless and desire all a delusion. He whose heart is fickle is not his own master, has thrown away his shield, deserted his post, and he forges the links of the chain that holds him.