If you cannot find peace in yourself, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.

Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.

Perseverance is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy; for it seems to be only the enduring of certain inclinations and opinions which men neither give themselves nor take away from themselves.

Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.

Virtue is to the soul what health is tot he body.