There is only one thing for which God has sent me into the world, and that is to develop every kind of virtue or strength, and there is nothing in all the world that I cannot use for this purpose.

Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.

Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.

You are a principal work, a fragment of [Goddess herself], you have in yourself a part of [her]. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth?

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

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