It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another

We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously

The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency

Of all the things which wisdom acquires to produce the blessedness of the complete life far the greatest is the possession of Friendship

It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not