Accustom yourself not to be disregarding of what someone else has to say: as far as possible enter into the mind of the speaker.

Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before his moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus.

Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendour until it is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and temperance be extinguished before thy death?

Letting go all else, cling to the following few truths. Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant: all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth; and little, too, is the longest fame to come - dependent as it is on a succession of fast-perishing little men who have no knowledge even of their own selves, much less of one long dead and gone.

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.

The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things are made and perfected according to this reason.

Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.