“Renew every day your conversation with God: Do this even in preference to eating. Think more often of God than you breathe.”

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.

Don’t demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

He who is not happy with little will never be happy with much.

Don’t live by your own rules, but in harmony with nature.

Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous, even death is terrible only if we fear it.

Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

No matter what happens, it is within my power to turn it to my advantage.

A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope.