Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity.

The wrongdoer is often the person who left something undone, rather than the person who has done something

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around them. That's all you need to know. Nothing more. Don't demand to know "why such things exist." Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work.

Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm and trepidation of the town mouse.

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.