Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest, and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of, and from what kind of governor of it you are descended; that you have a set period assigned you to act in, and unless you improve it to brighten and compose your thoughts, it will quickly run off with you, and be lost beyond recovery.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

Hast thou reason? I have. Why then dost not thou use it? For if this does its own work, what else dost thou wish?

Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts.

Think of the universal substance, of which thou has a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art

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?

Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.