Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

No one was ever injured by the truth; but he who persists in self-deception and ignorance is injured.

It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.

All is ephemeral - fame and the famous as well.

Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty... For what task, then, were you yourself created?

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.

Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.