Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and ay, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?'

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Neither worse then nor better is a thing made by being praised.

Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee.