If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

It is a mark of a mean capacity to spend much time on the things which concern the body, such as much exercise, much eating, much drinking, much easing of the body, much copulation. But these things should be done as subordinate things: and let all your care be directed to the mind.

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.

It doesn't take much to lose everything, just a little departure from reason

What matters most is what sort of person you are becoming. Wise individuals care only about whom they are today and who they can be tomorrow.

In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.