Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

The fool's life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.

There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number... are borne on far out into space.

Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man.

He who understands the limits of life knows that it is easy to obtain that which removes the pain of want and makes the whole of life complete and perfect. Thus he has no longer any need of things which involve struggle.

Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.

We ought to be thankful to nature for having made those things which are necessary easy to be discovered; while other things that are difficult to be known are not necessary.

Thanks be to blessed Nature that she has made what is necessary easy to obtain, and what is not easy unnecessary.

The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

Justice is never anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place whatever and at any time. It is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can and does not want to.

If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent.

If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked.

If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?

The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship.

I spit upon luxurious pleasures, not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow them.

The greater the Difficulty the more Glory in surmounting it, and the loss of false Joys secures to us a much better Possession of real ones.

The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.