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?

By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

It is wicked to withdraw from being useful to the needy, and cowardly to give way to the worthless.

Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power and should not be at all your concerns.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

What disturbs people's minds are not events but their judgments on events.