Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth.

Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present - thoughtfully, justly.

All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it - either gratefully better than or bitterly worse than something else that you alone choose.

Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before.