We need to regularly stop and take stock; to sit down and determine within ourselves which things are worth valuing and which things are not; which risks are worth the cost and which are not. Even the most confusing or hurtful aspects of life can be made more tolerable by clear seeing and by choice.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.

At this time is freedom anything but the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit

A man that seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

Against specious appearances we must set clear convictions, bright and ready for use. When death appears as an evil, we ought immediately to remember that evils are things to be avoided, but death is inevitable.