If you wish to be a writer, write.

What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to choose it belongs to someone else

It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance

Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?

Confidence in nonsense is a requirement for the creative process.

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.

Lampis the ship owner, on being asked how he acquired his great wealth, replied, My great wealth was acquired with no difficulty, but my small wealth, my first gains, with much labor.