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Peace of mind! That is something essential to any enjoyment of the present moment, and unless its separate moments are enjoyed, there is an end to life’s happiness as a whole. We should always recollect that today comes only once, and never returns. We fancy that it will come again tomorrow, but tomorrow is another day, which, in its turn, comes only once.
A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles — for then he is off his guard. This will often afford a good opportunity of observing the boundless egoism of a man’s nature, and his total lack of consideration for others; and if these defects show themselves in small things, or merely in his general manner, you will find that they also underlie his action in matters of importance, and although he may disguise the fact… Do not trust him beyond your door.
If you want your judgement to be accepted, express it coolly and without passion. All violence has its origin in the will, and so, if your judgement is expressed with vehemence, people will consider it an effort of will, and not the outcome of knowledge, which is in its nature calm and unemotional.
He alone knows what love is who loves without hope.
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Mental superiority of any kind always tends to isolate its possessor; people run away from him out of pure hatred, and say all manner of bad things about him by way of justifying their actions.
All men wish to be happy, but are dull at perceiving exactly what it is that makes life happy.
As goes your attention, so comes your experience.
To affect a quality, and to plume yourself upon it, is just to confess that you do not have it. Whether it is courage, or learning, or intellect, or wit, or success with women, or riches, or social position, or whatever else it may be that a man boasts of, you may conclude by his boasting about it that this is precisely the direction in which he is rather weak, for if a man really possesses any faculty to the full, it will not occur to him to make a great show of affecting it; he is quite content to know that he has it.
Not satisfied with the needs of nature, he demands the unnecessary.
He is unwise who looks at the fruit of lofty trees, but does not measure their height.
Culture, far from giving us freedom, only develops as it advances, new necessities; the fetters of the physical close more tightly around us, so that the fear of loss quenches even the ardent impulse towards improvement, and the maxims of passive obedience are held to be the highest wisdom of life.
Be sincere with yourself. Whether men love or hate, admire or despise you, is of but little importance. Speak only what is true, do only what is right.
Liberty is not in any form of government. It is in the heart of free man; he carries it with him everywhere.
The evil done by man falls upon his own head, without making any change in the system of the world.
I have a body on which other bodies act, and which acts reciprocally upon them. This reciprocal action is certain; but my will is independent of my senses. I can either consent to, or resist their impressions. I am either vanquished or victor, and can perceive clearly within myself when I act according to my will, and when I submit to be governed by my passions. I always have the power to will.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment is intuition.
Every man stamps his value on himself. The price we set for ourselves is given us… Man is made great or small by his own will.
The wretched hasten to hear of their own miseries.
Philosophy alone makes the mind invincible and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us.
