You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

Such is the blindness, nay the insanity of mankind, that some men are driven to death by the fear of it.

Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: Not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always to take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.

Nature has given us the seeds of knowledge, not knowledge itself.