People generally despise where they flatter, and cringe to those they would gladly overtop; so that truth and ceremony are two things.

To them that ask: Where hast thou seen the Gods, or how knowest thou certainly that there be Gods, that thou art so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

Things themselves cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree, nor have they admission to the soul nor can they turn or move the soul: it turns and moves itself alone and whatever judgment it may think proper to make, such it makes by remaking for itself the things that present themselves to it

When pain is unbearable it destroys us; when it does not it is bearable.

Think of the universal substance, of which thou has a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.