A good mind possesses a kingdom.

What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.

Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.

Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.

The man who hopes for naught at least has naught to fear.

The old Romans had a custom which survived even into my lifetime. They would add to the opening words of a letter: "If you are well, it is well; I also am well." Persons like ourselves would do well to say. "If you are studying philosophy, it is well." For this is just what "being well" means. Without philosophy the mind is sickly.

Take your fill when the cask is first opened and when it is nearly spent, but midways be sparing: it is poor saving when you come to the lees.

It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death.

Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause.

Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening.

Death weighs on him who is known to all, but dies unknown to himself.

Press on, therefore, as you have begun; perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection.

To be angry with a man is to hate him; to hate him is to wish him harm; but to wish him well, even if he has done you harm, is the mark of a great mind.

No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.

Unjust dominion cannot be eternal.

There is no reason why poverty should call us away from philosophy-no, nor even actual want. For when hastening after wisdom, we must endure even hunger. Men have endured hunger when their towns were besieged, and what other reward for their endurance did they obtain than that they did not fall under the conqueror's power? How much greater is the promise of the prize of everlasting liberty, and the assurance that we need fear neither God nor man! Even though we starve, we must reach that goal.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear.

Who can be forced has not learned how to die.

The best ideas are common property.

Worse than war is the very fear of war.

Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

Do you seek Alcides' equal? None is, except himself.

I commend you and rejoice in the fact that you are persistent in your studies, and that, putting all else aside, you make it each day your endeavour to become a better man.

Who profits by a sin has done the sin.

Armies have endured all manner of want, have lived on roots, and have resisted hunger by means of food too revolting to mention. All this they have suffered to gain a kingdom, and-what is more marvellous-to gain a kingdom that will be another's. Will any man hesitate to endure poverty, in order that he may free his mind from madness?

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

I may become a poor man; I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled; I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then? Am I free from bonds now? Behold this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me! "I shall die," you say; you mean to say "I shall cease to run the risk of sickness; I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment; I shall cease to run the risk of death."

No easy way leads from the earth to heaven..

... the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent's fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary's charge, who has been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now because you may be unhappy at some future time.

Unrighteous fortune seldom spares the highest worth; no one with safety can long front so frequent perils. Whom calamity oft passes by she finds at last.

Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.

We give voice to our trivial cares, but suffer enormities in silence.

If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.

What else is the help of medicine than love?

In us there is the Light of Nature, and that Light is God.

Consider that we shouldn't call our brother a fool, since we don't know ourselves what we are.

What maintains the marriage and what is it? Only the knowledge of the hearts, that is its beginning and end.

Nothing is hidden so much that it wouldn't be revealed through its fruit.

God has given to all things their course and decided how high and how far they may go, not higher, not lower.

What we should be after death, we have to attain in life, i.e. holiness and bliss. Here on earth the Kingdom of God begins.

Destruction perfects that which is good; for the good cannot appear on account of that which conceals it. The good is least good whilst it is thus concealed. The concealment must be removed so that the good may be able freely to appear in its own brightness. For example, the mountain, the sand, the earth, or the stone in which a metal has grown is such a concealment. Each one of the visible metals is a concealment of the other six metals.

Practice humility at first with man and only then before God. He who despises man, has also no respect for God.

God, our Father, has given us the life and the art of healing to protect and maintain it.

Who else is the enemy of Nature but he who mistakes himself for more intelligent than Nature, though it is the highest school for all of us?

All is interrelated. Heaven and earth, air and water. All are but one thing; not four, not two and not three, but one. Where they are not together, there is only an incomplete piece.

The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. If your heart is false, then also the doctor in you is false. If it is fair, then also the doctor is fair.

He who conquers his enemy with meekness, wins fame.