It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

Death is nothing to us: for after our bodies have been dissolved by death they are without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us. And therefore a right understanding of death makes mortality enjoyable, not because it adds to an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality.

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.