Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.

Dress not thy thoughts in too fine a raiment. And be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds.

... Allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Guard also against another kind of error: the folly of those who weary their days in much business, but lack any aim on which their whole effort, nay, their whole thought, is focused.

This is enough. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world?

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .

Man is born for deeds of kindness.

There is change in all things. You yourself are subject to continual change and some decay, and this is common to the entire universe.