“For the whole life of a philosopher is, as the same philosopher says, a meditation on death.”

Nothing cruel is in fact beneficial; for cruelty is extremely hostile to the nature of man, which we ought to follow.

To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.

The closer the collapse of the Empire, the crazier its laws are.

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

Freedom will bite back more fiercely when suspended than when she remains undisturbed.

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

Diseases of the soul are more dangerous and more numerous than those of the body.

We must not only obtain Wisdom: we must enjoy her.

We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.

Kindness is stronger than fear.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Ability without honor is useless.

A friend is a second self.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature.

I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.

You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.

Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

I agree that faith is essential to success in life, but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death.

A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.

Even when I’m being funny, I’m deadly serious.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.