Consider, for example, and you will find that almost all the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. You there find marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing far the consulship and for the kingdom; yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.

Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before.

Take the shortest route. The one that nature planned - to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculations and pretension.

Submit to the fate of your own free will.

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.

Be like the rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest.

If you do the task before you always adhering to strict reason with zeal and energy and yet with humanity, disregarding all lesser ends and keeping the divinity within you pure and upright, as though you were even now faced with its recall - if you hold steadily to this, staying for nothing and shrinking from nothing, only seeking in each passing action a conformity with nature and in each word and utterance a fearless truthfulness, then the good life shall be yours. And from this course no man has the power to hold you back.