There's no difference between the one and the other - you didn't exist and you won't exist - you've got no concern with either period. As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. It is not important at what point you stop. Stop wherever you will - only make sure that you round it off with a good ending.

There are times when even to live is an act of bravery. So there is the comforting thing about extremities of pain: if you feel it too much you are bound to stop feeling it. The love of power or money or luxurious living are not the only things which are guided by popular thinking. We take our cue from people's thinking even in the way we feel pain. Another thing which will help you is to turn your mind to other thoughts and that way get away from your suffering. Call to mind things which you have done that have been upright or courageous; run over in your mind the finest parts you have played. "But my illness has taken me away from my duties and won't allow me to achieve anything." It is your body, not your mind as well, that is in the grip of ill health.

Drunkenness inflames and lays bare every vice, removing the reserve that acts as a chuck on impulses to wrong behaviour.

...pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments…

So I look for the best and am prepared for the opposite.

There is nothing dangerous in a man's having as much power as he likes if he takes the view that he has power to do only what it is his duty to do.

The things that are essential are acquired with little bother; it is the luxuries that call for toil and effort.

One thing I know: all the works of mortal man lie under sentence of mortality; we live among things that are destined to perish.

A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.

When it comes to all we're required to go through, we're equals. No one is more vulnerable than the next man, and no one can be more sure of his surviving to the morrow.

And no one has power over us when death is within our own power.

The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet, will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.

Now think of the things which goad man into destroying man: they are hope, envy, hatred, fear and contempt.

...to be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind himself.

People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax. After every act they tremble, paralysed, their consciences continually demanding an answer, not allowing them to get on with other things. To expect punishment is to suffer it; and to earn it is to expect it.

Others have been plundered, indiscriminately, set upon, betrayed, beaten up, attacked with poison or with calumny - mention anything you like, it has happened to plenty of people.

Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at.

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application - not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech - and learn them so well that words become works.

...nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and how… nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

My baker may be out of bread, but the farm manager will have some, or the steward, or a tenant. "Bad bread, yes!" you'll say. Wait, then: it'll soon turn into good bread. Hunger will make you find even that bread soft and wheaty.

It is essential to make oneself used to putting up with a little. Even the wealthy and the well provided are continually met and frustrated by difficult times and situations. It is in no man's power to have whatever he wants; but he has it in his power not to wish for what he hasn't got, and cheerfully make the most of the things that do come his way.

And a stomach firmly under control, one that will put up with hard usage, marks a considerable step towards independence.

Glory's an empty, changeable thing, as fickle as the weather. Poverty's no evil to anyone unless he kicks against it. Death is not an evil. What is it then? The one law mankind has that is free of all discrimination. Superstition is an idiotic heresy: it fears those it should love: it dishonours those it worships. For what difference does it make whether you deny the gods or bring them into disrepute?

The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.

It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.

The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.

The wise man is neither raised up by prosperity nor cast down by adversity; for always he has striven to rely predominantly on himself, and to derive all joy from himself.

Many men will meet me who are drunkards, lustful, ungrateful, greedy, and excited by the frenzy of ambition.

Set aside a certain number of days during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while, "Is this the condition that I feared?

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

While we wait for life, life passes.

There is no genius without a touch of madness.

We should not, like sheep, follow the herd of creatures in front of us, making our way where others go, not where we ought to go.

Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those who you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one: men learn as they teach.

As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.

Inwardly, we ought to be different in every respect, but our outward dress should blend in with the crowd.

You are scared of dying—and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different than being dead?

You need not look about for the reward of a just deed; a just deed in itself offers a still greater return.

Everyone faces up more bravely to a thing for which he has long prepared himself, sufferings, even, being withstood if they have been trained for in advance. Those who are unprepared, on the other hand, are panic-stricken by the most insignificant happenings.

True happiness is 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 sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

We must take a higher view of all things, and bear with them more easily: it better becomes a man to scoff at life than to lament over it.

He who laughs at the human race deserves better of it than he who mourns for it, for the former leaves it some good hopes of improvement, while the latter stupidly weeps over what he has given up all hopes of mending.

We must indulge the mind and from time to time allow it the leisure which is its food and strength. We must go for walks out of doors, so that the mind can be strengthened by a clear sky and plenty of fresh air.

In the mean time, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases.

Let us not postpone anything, let us engage in combats with life each day.

It's not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.

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

So, concerning the things we pursue, and for which we vigorously exert ourselves, we owe this consideration – either there is nothing useful in them, or most aren't useful. Some of them are superfluous, while others aren't worth that much. But we don't discern this and see them as free, when they cost us dearly.

A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.

Your food should appease your hunger, your drink quench your thirst, your clothing keep out the cold, your house be a protection against inclement weather. It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or of variegated marble imported from another country.

Barley porridge, or a crust of bread, and water do not make a very cheerful diet, but nothing gives one keener pleasure than the ability to derive pleasure even from that — and the feeling of having arrived at something which one cannot be deprived of by any unjust stroke of fortune.

Set aside now and then a number of days during which you will be content with the plainest of food, and very little of it, and with rough, coarse clothing, and will ask yourself, 'Is this what one used to dread?

Never have I put my trust in fortune, even when she appeared to be offering peace; all those gifts she bestowed on me in her kindness —, position, influence — I stored where she would be able to reclaim them with no disturbance to me.

It is essential to make oneself used to putting up with a little. Even the wealthy and the well provided are continually met and frustrated by difficult times and situations. It is in no man's power to have whatever he wants; but he has it in his power not to wish for what he hasn't got, and cheerfully make the most of the things that do come his way.

In all things we should try to make ourselves be.

Timendi causa est nescire — Ignorance is the cause of fear.

What is quite unlooked for is more crushing in its effect, and unexpectedness adds to the weight of a disaster. The fact that it was unforeseen has never failed to intensify a person's grief. This is a reason for ensuring that nothing ever takes us by surprise. We should project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn and have in mind every possible eventuality instead of only the usual course of events.

This is why we need to envisage every possibility and to strengthen the spirit to deal with the things which may conceivably come about. Rehearse them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck. Misfortune may snatch you away from your country… If we do not want to be overwhelmed and struck numb by rare events as if they were unprecedented ones; fortune needs envisaging in a thoroughly comprehensive way.

That person has lost their children: you too, can lose yours; that person received sentence of death: your innocence too, stands under the hammer. This is the fallacy that takes us in and makes us weak while we suffer misfortunes that we never foresaw that we could suffer. The person who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive.

It's better to conquer grief than to deceive it.

Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Whatever seems lofty is dangerous… Those whom an unfavorable fortune has placed in a critical position will be safer if they eliminate pride from their proud circumstances and bring down their fortune as much as possible to a lowly state.

What is the point of dragging up sufferings that are over, of being miserable now, because you were miserable then?

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

We should love all our dear ones… but always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them forever—nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long.

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

The mind should not be kept continuously at the same pitch of concentration, but given amusing diversions… Our minds must relax: they will rise better and keener after a rest. Just as you must not force fertile farmland, as uninterrupted productivity will soon exhaust it, so constant effort will sap our mental vigor, while a short period of rest and relaxation will restore our powers.