Quotes

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

Neither the future nor the past pains you, but only the present.

Love the art, poor as it may be, which you have learned, and be content with it.

All those things which you wish to reach by a roundabout road, you can have now, if you do not refuse them to yourself.

Men seek retreats for themselves, in the country, by the sea, in the mountains; and you too are wont to long for such places. But this is altogether naive, for you can retire into yourself whenever you choose.

Begin the morning by saying to yourself: today I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the deceitful, the envious and the unsocial.

Do not spend too much time on the body; let your chief care be the mind.

Behave as at a banquet: take what is offered to you, and do not reach out for what has not yet come.

Take care of what you have been given as of something entrusted to you, not as something that is yours forever.

If you are given the part of a beggar, play that part well too.

Let death and exile and every other thing which appears dreadful be daily before your eyes, but most of all death.

If you ever turn outward in order to please someone, know that you have lost your way.