Don't be concerned with other people's impressions of you. They are dazzled and deluded by appearances. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence.

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

It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.

He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid.

It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?

If you wish to be a writer, write.