Everything is mere opinion.

Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within.

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses.

Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth.

Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

The greatest part of what we say and do is really unnecessary. If a man takes this to heart, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.