It is an infirmity of mind not to be able to bear riches.
To live right is in the power of everybody.
The acknowledgement of a fault is the beginning of a better life.
He who does not admit his proneness to do wrong has no desire to be corrected. You must recognize your errors before you can correct them.
The ancients held the first requisite of repentance to be an examination of one’s self, especially since without this, life would not be worth living.
There is no vice without some excuse.
You ask me what you should particularly avoid. (I answer,) a crowd. You cannot with safety to yourself mingle in a large company. I must verily confess my own weakness. I never bring back the same character that I took with me; something which I had banished, returns; something else that I had quieted, is aroused.... But nothing is so damaging to a good character as to spend much time at public spectacles, for with the pleasure we receive vices the more easily creep in unawares.
It is a large part of goodness to desire to become good.
There is a certain fitness in the feeling of sorrow; this the sage ought to heed, and just as in everything else so in grief there is a proper mean.
What fate did not give it did not take away.