In the meantime, 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.
Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.
A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.
The intellect must not be kept at consistent tension, but diverted by pastimes…. The mind must have relaxation, and will rise stronger and keener after recreation.
Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.
