Marcus Aurelius: “I receive it and refer it to the gods, and the source of all things, from which all that happens is derived.”

Be cheerful also, and seek not external help nor the tranquillity which others give.

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.

I observed, too, that no man could ever think that he was despised by Maximus, or ever venture to think himself a better man.

How quickly all things disappear,--in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them.