"The present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he possesses, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not."

"A cucumber is bitter. Throw it away. There are briars in the road. Turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, 'And why were such things made?'"

"Fools! not to be able to reflect how many things a man may gain by means of not saying and doing what is useful to himself, and how few things by saying and doing what is useful to himself."

"When you have done a good deed and another has received it, why do you still ask for a third thing, as fools do, namely, that you may be thought to have done a good deed or that you may be rewarded?"

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."