Difficulty shows what men are.

No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or child, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated.

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.

Your master is he who controls that on which you have set your heart or wish to avoid.

I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?

In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught;but in life there are many things to draw us aside.