Enough of this wretched life and murmuring and apish tricks. Why art thou disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee? Is it the form of the thing? Look at it. Or is it the matter? Look at it. But besides these there is nothing. Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and better. It is the same whether we examine these things for a hundred years or three.

To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing - here is the perfection of character.

Vex not thy spirit at the course of things, they heed not thy vexations

Why do you hunger for length of days? The point of life is to follow reason and the divine spirit and to accept whatever nature sends you. To live in this way is not to fear death, but to hold it in contempt. Death is only a thing of terror for those unable to live in the present. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go

Take away the complaint, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is taken away.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all.