In the life of man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his senses a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful. In short, all that is of the body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours, life a warfare, a brief sojourning in an alien land; and after repute, oblivion. (*)

For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of our own habitation but a minute corner in it; and how many are therein who will praise you, and what sort of men are they?

In a brief while now you will be ashes or bare bones; a name, or perhaps not even a name – though even a name is no more than empty sound and reiteration. All that men set their hearts on in this life is vanity, corruption, and trash; men are like scuffling puppies, or quarrelsome children who are all smiles one moment and in tears the next. (*)

When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.

In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable-boy's.

Death: a release from impressions of sense, from twitchings of appetite, from excursions of thought, and from service to the flesh.

Shame on the soul, to falter on the road of life while the body still perseveres.

Adapt yourself to the environment in which your lot has been cast, and show true love to the fellow-mortals with whom destiny has surrounded you.

You are not compelled to form any opinion about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all. Things in themselves have no power to extort a verdict from you.

A new life lies within your grasp. You have only to see things once more in the light of your first and earlier vision, and life begins anew.

An empty pageant; a stage play; flocks of sheep; herds of cattle; a tussle of spearmen; a bone flung among a pack of curs; a crumb tossed into a pond of fish; ants, loaded and labouring; mice, scared and scampering; puppets, jerking on their strings – that is life.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.

Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.

Do away with all fancies. Cease to be passion's puppet. Limit time to the present. Meditate upon your last hour.

In any predicament, have before your eyes the case of other men who greeted a like crisis with indignation, astonishment, and outcry. Where are they now? Nowhere.

Dig within. There lies the well-spring of good: ever dig, and it will ever flow.

How ridiculous not to flee from one's own wickedness, which is possible, yet endeavour to flee from another's, which is not. (*)

For what task, then, were you created? For pleasure? Can such a thought be tolerated?

So it is ever. Celer buries Hadrian, and is buried himself.

Subtract your own notions of what you imagine to be painful, and then your self stands invulnerable.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on to say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?"

Without an understanding of the nature of the universe, a man cannot know where he is; without an understanding of its purpose, he cannot know what he is, nor what the universe itself is. Let either of these discoveries be hid from him, and he will not be able so much as to give a reason for his own existence. (*)

As your breathing partakes of the circumfluent air, so let your thinking partake of the circumfluent Mind. For there is a mental Force which, for him who can draw it to himself, is no less ubiquitous and all-pervading than is the atmosphere for him who can breathe it. (*)

Men exist for each other. (*)

One thing, if any, might have held you back and bound you to life: the chance of fellowship with kindred minds.

Observe with care and you will see: you will sooner find a fragment of earth unrelated to the rest of earth than a man who is utterly without some link with his fellows. (*)

Soon earth will cover us all.

A short time, and your eyes will close; and for the man who bears you to your grave, too, the tears will soon enough be falling. (*)

It may be that the things you fret and fume to pursue or avoid do not come to you, but rather you go to them.

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

Meditate upon what you ought to be in body and soul when death overtakes you; meditate upon the brevity of life, and the measureless gulfs of eternity behind it and before, and upon the frailty of everything material.

How small a fraction of all the measureless infinity of time is allotted to each one of us; an instant, and it vanishes into eternity. How puny, too, is your portion of all the world's substance; how insignificant your share of all the world's soul; on how minute a speck of the whole earth do you creep. (*)

How is my soul's helmsman going about his task? For in that lies everything. All else, within my control or beyond it, is dead bones and vapour.