If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault... Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.

The materials are indifferent, but the use we make of them is not a matter of indifference.

No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.

What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.

Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.