Discard everything except these few truths: we can live only in the present moment, in this brief now; all the rest of our life is dead and buried or shrouded in uncertainty. Short is the life we lead, and small our patch of earth.

You exist but as a part inherent in a greater whole. Do not live as though you had a thousand years before you. The common due impends; while you live, and while you may, be good.

Since you are an integral part of a social system, let every act of yours contribute to the harmonization of social life. Any action that is not related directly or remotely to this social aim disturbs your life, and destroys your unity.

It is a sin to persue pleasure as a good and to avoid pain as a evil.

The sinner sins against himself; the wrongdoer wrongs himself, becoming the worse by his own action.

Once you have done a man a service, what more reward would you have? Is it not enough to have obeyed the laws of your own nature, without expecting to be paid for it?

Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.