“What saith Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard?— It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of.”

“Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations torise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also waitnot for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty;nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like theSun.”

“Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.”

“I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.”

“As for us, we behave like a herd of deer. When they flee from the huntsman's feathers in affright, which way do they turn? What haven of safety do they make for? Why, they rush upon the nets! And thus they perish by confounding what they should fear with that wherein no danger lies. . . . Not death or pain is to be feared, but the fear of death or pain. Well said the poet therefore:— Death has no terror; only a Death of shame!”

“Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.”

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”