Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Even while a thing is in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has already ceased to be.

Don't let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.