The evil which assails us is not in the localities we inhabit but in ourselves. We lack strength to endure the least task, being incapable of suffering pain, powerless to enjoy pleasure, impatient with everything. How many invoke death when, after having tried every sort of change, they find themselves reverting to the same sensations, unable to discover any new experience.

An unpopular rule is never long maintained.

...nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor.

Some there are that torment themselves afresh with the memory of what is past; others, again, afflict themselves with the apprehension of evils to come; and very ridiculously both - for the one does not now concern us, and the other not yet ... One should count each day as a separate life.

To rule yourself is the ultimate power