Do not fear death, but welcome it, since it too comes from nature. For just as we are young and grow old, and flourish and reach maturity, have teeth and a beard and grey hairs, conceive, become pregnant, and bring forth new life, and all the other natural processes that follow the seasons of our existence, so also do we have death. A thoughtful person will never take death lightly, impatiently, or scornfully, but will wait for it as one of life's natural processes.

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

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.

That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.

If you are distressed by something, it is due to your own estimate of it; and you have the power to change it at will.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

Wilt thou, then, my soul, never be good and simple and one and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds thee?