Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.

Gluttony and drunkenness have two evils attendant on them; they make the carcass smart, as well as the pocket.

Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself and asks nothing beyond itself. Praise is no part of it, for nothing is made worse or better by praise.

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present - thoughtfully, justly.

If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it? And what is the harm to the common weal?

Everything is born from change. ...there is nothing nature loves more that to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the one that make plants and children? Go deeper.