The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, endeavor to rouse your faculties, and act up to your kind, and consider that you have to do the business of a man; and that action is both beneficial and the end of your being.

If any man should conceive certain things as being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good.

Persuade me or prove to me that I am mistaken in thought or deed, and I will gladly change - for it is the truth I seek, and the truth never harmed anyone. Harm comes from persisting in error and clinging to ignorance.

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.

Do not be wise in words - be wise in deeds.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.