A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.

You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower.

I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?

You will do the greatest service to the state, if you shall raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens.

We should enjoy good fortune while we have it, like the fruits of autumn.

It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.

Pleasure, like a kind of bait, is thrown before everything which is really bad, and easily allures greedy souls to the hook of perdition.

As nothing is straighter than that which is straight, so nothing is juster than that which is just.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? "What sinews are those?" — A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised, careful resolutions; unerring decisions.

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable.

Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.

Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.

If you think that you have free rein over things that are naturally beyond your control, or if you attempt to adopt the affairs of others as your own, your pursuits will be thwarted and you will become a frustrated, anxious, and fault-finding person.

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.

Whatever you would make habitual, practice it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practice it, but accustom yourself to something else.

No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

If virtue promises good fortune and tranquility and happiness, certainly also the progress towards virtue is progress towards each of these things.

Books are the training weights of the mind.

We must make the best use that we can of the things which are in our power, and use the rest according to their nature.

The rational and the irrational appear such in a different way to different persons, just as the good and the bad, the profitable and the unprofitable.

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.

If you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself.

It is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like the Sun.

For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.

Pain or pleasure? I say pleasure.

It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

The soul that companies with Virtue is like an ever-flowing source. It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught; sweet, rich, and generous of its store; that injures not, neither destroys.

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.

In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.

If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.