As Lucretius says: 'Thus ever from himself doth each man flee.' But what does he gain if he does not escape from himself? He ever follows himself and weighs upon himself as his own most burdensome companion. And so we ought to understand that what we struggle with is the fault, not of the places, but of ourselves

The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will.

It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in what condition soever we are, and money signifies no more to it than it does to the gods.

Vice is contagious, and there is no trusting the sound and the sick together.

Who is everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

It is the failing of youth not to be able to restrain its own violence.

We ought not to confine ourselves either to writing or to reading; the one, continuous writing, will cast a gloom over our strength, and exhaust it; the other will make our strength flabby and watery. It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one's reading may be reduced to concrete form by the pen.