“Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.”

Vain is the word of that philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man.

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.

Justice is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

The fool’s life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

If a little is not enough for you, nothing is.

If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.

Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.

The noble man is chiefly concerned with wisdom and friendship; of these, the former is a mortal good, the latter and immortal one.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.

If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.