A good man does not spy around for the black spots in others, but presses unswervingly on towards his mark.

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That's all you need to know.

Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.

A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation.

Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.

To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief

Never forget that the universe is a single living organism possessed of one substance and one soul, holding all things suspended in a single consciousness and creating all things with a single purpose that they might work together spinning and weaving and knotting whatever comes to pass.