Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear?

Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be.

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