Freedom isn't the right or ability to do whatever you please. Freedom comes from understanding the limits of our own power and the inherent limits set in place by nature. By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, you become truly free.

If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

If you would be well spoken of, learn to be well-spoken; and having learnt to be well- spoken, strive also to be well-doing; so shall you succeed in being well spoken of.

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.

The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig.