“He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”

“Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.”

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality”

“He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.”

“And what’s so bad about your being deprived of that?... All things seem unbearable to people who have become spoilt, who have become soft through a life of luxury, ailing more in the mind than they ever are in the body.”