As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.

The constant recollection of death is the test of human conduct.

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

Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.

I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?

Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.