God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

The cause of all human evils is the not being able to apply general principles to special cases.

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

It is not things in themselves which trouble us, but our opinions of things.

Never say of anything I have lost it, only say that I have given it back.

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.

All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means - for example, wealth and status - with that life itself. This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get further from the happy life. The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.