As the same fire assumes different shapes When it consumes objects differing in shape, So does the one Self take the shape Of every creature in whom he is present.

I, who have never willfully pained another, have no business to pain myself.

Am I doing anything? I do it with reference to the good of mankind. Does anything happen to me? I receive it and refer it to the gods, and the source of all things, from which all that happens is derived.

You are a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

Let every action aim solely at the common good.