"Never act without purpose and resolve, or..." - Quote by Marcus Aurelius

“Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be.”

“How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.”

“Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .”

“So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.”

“Grace is that thing that shows up to guide you when you've done the first two steps and you're intent on doing something larger than just yourself. That's when all of the sudden things are great.”

“The searching-out and thorough investigation of truth ought to be the primary study of man.”

“The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.”

“That we would doWe should do when we would, for this 'would' changes,And hath abatements and delays as manyAs there are tongues, are hands, are accidents,And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,That hurts by easing.”

“Time passes unhindered. When we make mistakes, we cannot turn the clock back and try again. All we can do is use the present well.”