The gods extend a helping hand to those who would rise. Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God comes to men, and what is more, He comes into men. No mind is good without God.
All men, if they are traced to their first origin, are from the gods.
Every day, every hour, reminds us of our nothingness and, by some fresh admonition, warns those of their frailty who are prone to forget it.
Give heed to each day as if it were your whole life. Nothing will so much enable you to exercise control over yourself in all things as to think often of the uncertainty and brevity of life.
You will grant that the greatest piety toward the gods is a characteristic of a good man; and so whatever may befall him he will bear with equanimity, for he will know that it has happened in harmony with that divine law by which all things are governed.
No one is strong enough to rise by his own strength; every man needs some one to extend a hand, some one to lead him.
So let us live, so let us talk, that our destiny may find us prepared and ready to follow it. Great is the soul that has yielded itself to God; on the other hand, that one is cowardly and degenerate that resists, that finds fault with the order of the world, and is more ready to set the the gods right than itself.
We ought to have before our minds some one whom we revere; some one whose influence makes even our most secret thoughts holier.
Long is a way by precepts; short and effectual, by examples.
Weaker minds, however, have need of some one to go before who shall say, “This avoid, this do.”