“No past life has been lived to lend us glory, and that which has existed before us is not ours.”

“We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it. Our too great love for it makes us restless with fears, burdens us with cares, and exposes us to insults.”

“Soft living imposes on us the penalty of debility; we cease to be able to do the things we've long been grudging about doing.”

“The part of life we really live is small.' For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.”

“It is our conscience, not our pride, that has put doorkeepers at our doors.”

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”

“We are indeed apt to ascribe certain faults to the place or to the time; but those faults will follow us, no matter how we change our place.”