Don't be prideful with any excellence that is not your own

If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.

I must die. I must be imprisoned. I must suffer exile. But must I die groaning? Must I whine as well? Can anyone hinder me from going into exile with a smile? The master threatens to chain me: what say you? Chain me? My leg you will chain--yes, but not my will--no, not even Zeus can conquer that.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

Do nothing in a depressed mood, nor as one afflicted, nor as thinking that you are in misery, for no one compels you to that.

To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.

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?