Marcus Aurelius: “A cucumber is bitter--Throw it away.--There are briers in the road--Turn aside from them.--This is enough.”

What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?

But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.

But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.

Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common nature brings.