As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.

The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of a diseased eye.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

You need to be prepared for firm decisions and action, without losing gentleness towards those who obstruct or abuse you. It's as great a weakness to be angry with them as it is to abandon your plan of action and give up through fear.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

"Sweep me up and send me where you please." For there I will retain my spirit, tranquil and content, as long as it can feel and act in harmony with its own nature. Is a change of place enough reason for my soul to become unhappy and worn, for me to become depressed, humbled, cowering, and afraid? Can you discover any reasons for this?

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.