Are you wondering what pleases me the most out of everything I hear about you? It is that I hear nothing at all—that most of those whom I question do not know how you are doing. 2 This is beneficial, to have nothing to do with those who are unlike you, whose desires are different from yours. Indeed, I am confident that you cannot be turned aside

Remembering my abilities (for I have long been a swimmer), I threw myself into the sea as a cold-water enthusiast should, wearing my mantle.

10 Some people glory in their faults. Do you suppose they have any thought for the remedy? Surely not, since they count their bad habits as virtues! Bring an accusation against yourself, as stringently as you can. Then conduct the investigation. Take the role of the accuser first, then the judge, and let that of the advocate come last. Offend

As if birth order determined our fate! 15 So let us remember mortality, in ourselves as well as our loved ones. I ought to have said, back then, “My dear Serenus is younger than I, but what difference does that make? He ought to die after me, but he could die before.” Because I did not do this, fortune struck me suddenly and unprepared. Now I keep

As for you, if you want never to be afraid of death, think about it always.

And they are well aware of that fact, and yet in their pettishness they grasp at any opportunity to hurt others. They consider themselves wronged just so they can do a wrong themselves.

Not at all: it is honorable to learn at every time of life, but by the same token there is a time at which it is not honorable to be taking the introductory course. It is shameful, even ridiculous, for an old man to be still learning his letters. One should acquire an education in youth, and then in old age make use of it.

the fault is not in one’s surroundings but in the mind itself. Whatever it was that made poverty a trial makes riches a trial as well. When a person is sick, it makes no difference whether you lay him on a wooden bed or a golden one: he’ll take the disease along wherever you carry him. Even so, it matters not at all whether one sick in mind is

Animals in the wild flee the dangers they see and are tranquil once they have escaped; we, though, are tormented both by what is to come and by what has been. Often, our goods do us harm: memory recalls the stab of fear; foresight anticipates it. No one is made wretched merely by the present. Farewell.