One of the recurring themes in Marcus' handbook is leadership's responsibility to work intelligently with what it is given and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.

Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.

Death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful - and hence neither good nor bad.

It will suffice thee to remember as concerning pain ... that the mind may, by stopping all manner of commerce and sympathy with the body, still retain its own tranquility.

It's normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you're using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal - if he's living a normal life. And if it's normal, how can it be bad?

The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things are made and perfected according to this reason.

It is not the body, nor the personality that is the true self. The true self is eternal. Even on the point of death we can say to ourselves, "my true self is free. I cannot be contained."