Quote: I persist on praising not the life I lead, but that which I ought to l...

Happy the man who can endure the highest And the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power.

He that visits the sick in hopes of a legacy, but is never so friendly in all other cases, I look upon him as being no better than a raven that watches a weak sheep only to peck out its eyes.

He who boasts of his descent, praises the deeds of another.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

If I give way to pleasure, I must also yield to grief, to poverty, to labor, ambition, anger, until I am torn to pieces by my misfortunes and my lust.

Life, if thou knowest how to use it, is long enough.

If we could trace our descendants, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves.

Fortune can take away riches, but not courage.

If you wished to be loved, love.

It better befits a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

It is best to bear what can't be altered.

It is not goodness to be better than the very worst.

Since learned men have appeared, good men have become rare.

It is the edge and temper of the blade that make a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so it is not money or possessions that make man considerable, but his virtue.

The fortunes of war are always doubtful.

It is uncertain in what place death may await thee; therefore expect it in any place.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

If thou wishest to get rid of thy evil propensities, thou must keep far from evil companions.

Calamity is virtue's opportunity.

There can be slain No sacrifice to God more acceptable Than an unjust and wicked king.

A great fortune is a great servitude.

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers.

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party: there is no battle unless there be two.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

Anger, though concealed, is betrayed by the countenance.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.

Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his Attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, A brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune.

Freedom is not being a slave to any circumstance, to any constraint, to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.

Courage leads to heaven; fear, to death.

Death is sometimes a punishment, sometimes a gift; to many it has come as a favor.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Economy is in itself a source of great revenue.

Everything that exceeds the bounds of moderation has an unstable foundation.

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.

As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit.

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of Ambition that it never looks behind it.

Our plans miscarry if they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

One should count each day a separate life.

One crime is concealed by the commission of another.

Old age is an incurable disease.

Nothing is void of God; He Himself fills His work.

Nothing is more dishonorable than an old man, heavy with years, who has no other evidence of his having lived long except his age.

Nothing is more common than for great thieves to ride in triumph when small ones are punished.

Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.

No man is free who is a slave to the flesh.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

Night brings our troubles to the light rather than banishes them.

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

Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.

Light troubles speak; immense troubles are silent.

The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.

The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.

The ascent from earth to heaven is not easy.

Not he who has little, but he who wishes for more, is poor.

Take away ambitions and vanity, and where will be your heroes and patriots?

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some one talent. Yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely, for all science is one.

Malice drinks one half of its own poison.

Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.

Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.

See how does great prosperity overspreads the mind with darkness.

Remember that pain has this most excellent quality: if prolonged it cannot be severe, and if severe it cannot Be prolonged.

Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration, but temper and moderation generally produce permanence in all things.

That grief is light which can take counsel.

Diligence is a very great help even to a mediocre intelligence. Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

The evil which assails us is not in the localities we inhabit but in ourselves.

The road be precepts is tedious, by example short and efficacious.

I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.

What must be shall be; and that which is a necessity to him that struggles, is little more than choice to him that struggles.

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

What with our hooks, snares, nets, and dogs, we are at war with all living creatures, and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too cheap or too common; and all this is to gratify a fantastical palate.

Who needs forgiveness, should the same extend with readiness.

A great fortune is a great slavery.

There is no easy way from the earth to the stars. Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.

There has not been any great talent without an element of madness. Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit

A giant will keep his size even though he will have stood in a well. Colossus magnitudinem suam servabit etiam si steterit in puteo

It goes far toward making a man faithful to let him understand that you think him so; and he that does but suspect I will deceive him, gives me a sort of right to do so.

Light cares speak, great ones are speechless. Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent

The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you give it only what you owe, and not as much as you can.

The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience: temperance in prosperity, and patient courage in adversity.

An action will not be right unless the will be right; for from thence is the action derived. Again, the will will not be right unless the disposition of the mind be right; for from thence comes the will.

Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from above, so many medicinal springs do not alter the taste of the sea, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. For it maintains its balance, and over all that happens it throws its own complexion, because it is more powerful than external circumstances.

There is no power greater than true affection.

As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure, if you know how to use it. The gradually (I do not say rapidly) declining years are amongst the sweetest in a mans life; and, I maintain, that even where they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.

Drunkenness does not create vice; it merely brings it into view.

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.

Anger: an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

The appearances of things are deceptive. Fallaces sunt rerum species

It is proof of a bad cause when it is appluaded by the mob.

To see a man fearless in dangers. untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

Let us bear with magnanimity whatever it is needful for us to bear.

The best ideas are common property.

It is not goodness to be better than the worst. Bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem

Mere life is not a blessing, but to live well.

It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.

It is well to be born either a king or a fool.

Love of bustle is not industry.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Chance makes a plaything of a man's life.

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

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

Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life.

Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.

Conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets from us just like love or liquor.

About his father: Devoted to the tradition of his ancestors Maiorum consuetudini deditus

Courage leads to heaven; fear leads to death.

Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.

The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man.... It is more powerful than external circumstances.

It is not because it is difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

Death: A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.

Do not grudge your brother his rest. He has at last become free, safe and immortal, and ranges joyous through the boundless heavens; he has left this low-lying region and has soared upwards to that place which receives in its happy bosom the souls set free from the chains of matter. Your brother has not lost the light of day, but has obtained a more enduring light. He has not left us, but has gone on before.

When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly intertwined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place, and the awful gloom of this doomed cavern then strike you with the presence of a deity?

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

Let him who has given a favor be silent; let he who has received it tell it. Qui dedit beneficium taceat; narrat qui accepit

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

A good mind possesses a kingdom.

It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.

No era is closed to great intellects. Nullum saeculum magnis ingeniis clausum est

A great man can come from a hut. Potest ex casa magnus vir exire

For greed all nature is too little.

True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man; to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us, and within our reach; but we shut our eyes and, like people in the dark, fall foul of the very thing we search for without finding it. Tranquility is a certain quality of mind which no condition of fortune can either exalt or depress.

Whatever is to make us better and happy, God has placed either openly before us or close to us.

Great is he who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man to whom all plate is no more than earthenware.

If you would make a man happy, do not add to his possessions but subtract from the sum of his desires.

Believe me, that was a happy age, before the days of architects, before the days of builders.

You roll my log, and I will roll yours.

An honest heart possesses a kingdom.

Ignorance is the cause of fear. Timendi causa est nescire

In every good man a God doth dwell.

If you judge, investigate.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.

All things are cause for either laughter or weeping.

Even while they teach, men learn.

We learn not in the school, but in life.

Leisure without literature is death, or rather the burial of a living man Otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura.

Do the best you can ... enjoy the present ... rest satisfied with what you have.

Life is neither a good nor an evil; it is simply the place where good and evil exist.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

I persist on praising not the life I lead, but that which I ought to lead. I follow it at a mighty distance, crawling.

Life is a gift of the immortal Gods, but living well is the gift of philosophy.

This is the reason we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and to read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

Our (the Stoic) motto, as you know, is live according to nature.

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

People do not care how nobly they live, only how long, despite the fact that it is within everyone's reach to live nobly, but within no one's reach to live long.

It is extreme evil to depart from the company of the living before you die.

If thou wishest to be loved, love.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There is no great genius without a tincture of madness. Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ

We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?

Live with men as if God saw you; converse with God as if men heard you.

The mind should be allowed some relaxation, that it may return to its work all the better for the rest.

We are more wicked together than separately. If you are forced to be in a crowd, then most of all you should withdraw into yourself.

If thou live according to nature, thou wilt never be poor; if according to the opinions of the world, thou wilt never be rich.

There is no delight in owning anything unshared.

No man ever became wise by chance.

We are more easily led part by part to an understanding of the whole. Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.

The gladiator is making his plan in the arena (i.e. too late). Gladiator in arena consilium capit

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

Everything may happen. Omnio fieri possent

There is a noble manner of being poor and who does not know it will never be rich.

Not he who has little, but he whose wishes more, is poor.

This life is only a prelude to eternity.

It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters.

He who comes to a conclusion when the other side is unheard, may have been just in his conclusion, but yet has not been just in his conduct.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Man is a reasoning Animal.

A young man respects and looks up to his teachers. Praeceptores suos adulescens veneratur et suspicit

We are so vain as to set the highest value upon those things to which nature has assigned the lowest place. What can be more coarse and rude in the mind than the precious metals, or more slavish and dirty than the people that dig and work them? And yet they defile our minds more than our bodies, and make the possessor fouler than the artificer of them. Rich men, in fine, are only the greater slaves.

Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.

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

We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

The person you are matters more than the place to which you go.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.

Whom they have injured they also hate. Quos læserunt et oderunt

The hour which gives us life begins to take it away.

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

It is sometimes pleasant even to act like a madman. Aliquando et insanire iucundum est

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.

The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and perturbations; to understand and do our duties to God and man, and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the future.

Truth never perishes.

The greatest wealth is a poverty of desires.

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

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

If wisdom were offered me with this restriction, that I should keep it close and not communicate it, I would refuse the gift.

It is with life as with a playit matters not how long the action is spun out, but how good the acting is.

He who decides a case without hearing the other side ... though he decides justly, cannot be considered just.

There is nothing which persevering effort and unceasing and diligent care can not accomplish.

To wish well is part of becoming well.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

Where silence is not allowed, what then is permissible?

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.

He who seeks wisdom is a wise man; he who thinks he has found it is mad.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

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