Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

No living being is held by anything so strongly as its own needs.

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

No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?

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.

A ship should not be held by a single anchor; neither should life depend upon a single hope.