Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

Stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.

Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay? Death comes even to monumental structures, and oblivion rests on the most illustrious names.

The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.

Everything is born from change. ...there is nothing nature loves more that to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the one that make plants and children? Go deeper.

No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.

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