—‘We ought to hold to our decisions.’—What are you up to, man? Not to every decision, but to those that are justified.

[What is the matter? [8] ‘My father doesn’t give me anything.’] Must you add further in your own mind that this is something bad, and so add a falsehood too? That’s why it is not poverty that we should reject, but the judgement that we hold about it, and then our life will run happily.

in the case of most faults, the main reason why people can be brought to confess to them is that they conceive them as being in some sense involuntary,

Since I can get greatness of soul and nobility of mind from myself, shall I seek to get a patch of land from you, or a bit of money, or some public post? Heaven forbid!

Why don’t you reflect, then, that for man the source of all evils, and of his meanness of spirit and cowardice, is not death itself, but rather the fear of death? It is to confront this that you must train yourself, [39] and it is towards that end that all your reasonings, all your studies, and all your readings should be directed, and then you’ll

For I’m moved by nature to look to my own benefit. [14] If it is to my benefit to have a piece of land, it is also to my benefit to take it from my neighbour. If it is to my benefit to have a cloak, it is also to my benefit to steal one at the baths. Hence the origin of wars, revolts, tyrannies, and plots.

The essence of the good is a certain disposition of our choice, and that of the bad likewise. [2] What are externals, then? Materials for our choice, which attains its own good or ill through the way in which it deals with them. [3] How can it attain the good? By not overvaluing the materials.

So where in human beings is the great good and evil to be found? In that which distinguishes them as human; and if that is preserved and kept well fortified, and if one’s self-respect, and fidelity, and intelligence are kept unimpaired, then the human being himself is safeguarded; but if any of these are destroyed or taken by storm, then he himself

Never call yourself a philosopher, and don’t talk among laymen for the most part about philosophical principles, but act in accordance with those principles. At a banquet, for example, don’t talk about how one ought to eat, but eat as one ought.