“Religious questions have often led to wicked and impious actions.”

If the matter of death is reduced to sleep and rest, what can there be so bitter in it, that any one should pine in eternal grief for the decease of a friend?

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others.

Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.

Yet a little while, and (the happy hour) will be over, nor ever more shall we be able to recall it.

For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers.

Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.

Some species increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and, like runners, pass on the torch of life.

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

It is a pleasure for to sit at ease Upon the land, and safely for to see How other folks are tossed on the seas That with the blustering winds turmoiled be.

It is pleasurable, when winds disturb the waves of a great sea, to gaze out from land upon the great trials of another.

Life is one long struggle in the dark.

The mask is torn off, while the reality remains

Confess then, naught from nothing can become, Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow, Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.

For out of doubt In these affairs ’tis each man’s will itself That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs Incipient motions are diffused.

The highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt.

The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.