If you are ruled by mind you are a king; if by body, a slave.
A city is not adorned by external things, but by the virtue of those who dwell in it.
All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.
You will do the greatest services to the state, if you shall raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.
The worst ruler is one who cannot rule himself.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Lighter is the wound foreseen.
Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
It’s better to live under a monarchy than to suffer under democracy.
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.
Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.
He is nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent.
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.
Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.
An orator is a good man who is skilled in speaking.
Tis sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.
A man of faith is also full of courage.
If you want to improve, you must be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
Do not afflict others with anything that you yourself would not wish to suffer. if you would not like to be a slave, make sure no one is your slave. If you have slaves, you yourself are the greatest slave, for just as freedom is incompatible with slavery, so goodness is incompatible with hypocrisy.
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquities.
Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavours. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast…and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.
The mind becomes accustomed to things by the habitual sight of them, and neither wonders nor inquires about the reasons for things it sees all the time.
Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.
Hours and days and months and years go by; the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know; but whatever the time gives us in which we live, we should therefore be content.
The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.
We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.
Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
The hero saves us. Praise the hero! Now, who will save us from the hero?
We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us.
But first consider how much more sparing and patient of hardship the poor are than we.
Don’t just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalised their contents.
Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice.
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.
Ability without honor is useless.
No one is ever unhappy because of someone else.
The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.
Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
God save me from fools with a little philosophy – no one is more difficult to reach.
It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens.
