Marcus Aurelius: “Why then dost thou not wait in tranquillity for thy end, whether it is extinction or removal to another state?”

What a power man has to do nothing except what God will approve, and to accept all that God may give him.

He was accustomed to do acts of beneficence, and was ready to forgive, and was free from all falsehood; and he presented the appearance of a man who could not be diverted from right, rather than of a man who had been improved.

In the application of thy principles thou must be like the pancratiast, not like the gladiator; for the gladiator lets fall the sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and needs to do nothing else than use it.

Thou must turn to profit the present by the aid of reason and justice.