“Why do I not rather seek some real good - one which I could feel, not one which I could display? These things that draw the eyes of men, before which they halt, which they show to one another in wonder, outwardly glitter, but are worthless within.”

“It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great.”

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

“It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.”

“No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed.”

“For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast - a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?A man thus grounded must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.”

“Although the sum and substance of the happy life is unalloyed freedom from care, and though the secret of such freedom is unshaken confidence... men gather together that which causes worry.”