Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself. For both ruin and recovery are from within.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit.

And be silent for the most part, or else make only the most necessary remarks, and express these in few words. But rarely, and when occasion requires you to talk, talk, indeed, but about no ordinary topics. Do not talk about gladiators, or horseraces, or athletes, or things to eat or drink - topics that arise on all occasions; but above all, do not talk about people, either blaming, or praising, or comparing them.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

With ills unending strives the putter off.

No man is free who is not master of himself.