The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.

Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.

Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.

If anyone can refute me-show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective-I'l l gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.

As for others whose lives are not so ordered, he reminds himself constantly of the characters they exhibit daily and nightly at home and abroad, and of the sort of society they frequent; and the approval of such men, who do not even stand well in their own eyes, has no value for him.

Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill.

Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a mountain.