Quote collection
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"No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart."
"The man who doesn't know what the universe is doesn't know where he lives."
"Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life, - there, if one must speak out, the real man."
"An angry look on the face is wholly against nature. If it be assumed frequently, beauty begins to perish, and in the end is quenched beyond rekindling."
"Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself."
"There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen."
"If it's time for you to go, leave willingly - as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor."
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too - ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring earth."
"He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad."
"Be satisfied with your business, and learn to love what you were bred to."
"It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint while the body still perseveres."
"It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man."
"Purge your mind of all aimless and idle thoughts, especially those that pry into the affairs of others or wish them ill."
"The passing minute is every man's equal possession but what has once gone by is not ours."
"Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go."
"When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, quickly return to yourself, and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts. You will have increasing control over your own harmony by continually returning to it."
"So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere."
"How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone out of it."
"All that is from the gods is full of Providence."
"You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves."