Skilled wrestlers are kept up to the mark by practice; a musician is stirred to action by one of equal proficiency. The wise man also needs to have his virtues kept in action; and as he prompts himself to do things, so is he prompted by another wise man.
Peritos luctandi usus exercet; musicum, qui paria didicit, movet. Opus est et sapienti agitatione virtutum: ita quemadmodum ipse se movet, sic movetur ab alio sapiente.
Epistulae Morales 109.2
Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, chapter 3
You can be unconquerable, if you enter into no combat in which it is not in your own power to conquer. When, therefore, you see any one eminent in honors or power, or in high esteem on any other account, take heed not to be bewildered by appearances and to pronounce him happy; for if the essence of good consists in things within our own power, there will be no room for envy or emulation. But, for your part, do not desire to be a general, or a senator, or a consul, but to be free; and the only way to this is a disregard of things which lie not within our own power.
ἀνίκητος εἶναι δύνασαι, ἐὰν εἰς μηδένα ἀγῶνα καταβαίνῃς, ὃν οὐκ ἔστιν ἐπὶ σοὶ νικῆσαι. ὅρα μήποτε ἰδών τινα προτιμώμενον ἢ μέγα δυνάμενον ἢ ἄλλως εὐδοκιμοῦντα μακαρίσῃς, ὑπὸ τῆς φαντασίας συναρπασθείς. ἐὰν γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ἐφʼ ἡμῖν ἡ οὐσία τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ᾖ, οὔτε φθόνος οὔτε ζηλοτυπία χώραν ἔχει· σύ τε αὐτὸς οὐ στρατηγός, οὐ πρύτανις ἢ ὕπατος εἶναι θελήσεις, ἀλλʼ ἐλεύθερος. μία δὲ ὁδὸς πρὸς τοῦτο, καταφρόνησις τῶν οὐκ ἐφʼ ἡμῖν.
Enchiridion 19
A conceited man is one in whom a knowledge of certain details, dignified by the name of business, is added to a very middling intellect. One grain of sense and one ounce of business more than there are in a conceited man, make the man of importance. While people only laugh at a man of importance he has no other name; but when they begin to complain of him he may be called arrogant.
Le suffisant est celui en qui la pratique de certains détails que l'on honore du nom d'affaires se trouve jointe à une très grande médiocrité d'esprit. Un grain d'esprit et une once d'affaires plus qu'il n'en entre dans la composition du suffisant, font l'important. Pendant qu'on ne fait que rire de l'important, il n'a pas un autre nom; dès qu'on s'en plaint, c'est l'arrogant.
Of Opinions
If you would improve, be content to be thought foolish and dull with regard to externals. Do not desire to be thought to know anything; and though you should appear to others to be somebody, distrust yourself. For be assured, it is not easy at once to keep your will in harmony with nature, and to secure externals; but while you are absorbed in the one, you must of necessity neglect the other.
εἰ προκόψαι θέλεις, ὑπόμεινον ἕνεκα τῶν ἐκτὸς ἀνόητος δόξας καὶ ἠλίθιος, μηδὲν βούλου δοκεῖν ἐπίστασθαι· κἂν δόξῃς τις εἶναί τισιν, ἀπίστει σεαυτῷ. ἴσθι γὰρ ὅτι οὐ ῥᾴδιον τὴν προαίρεσιν τὴν σεαυτοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ἔχουσαν φυλάξαι καὶ τὰ ἐκτός, ἀλλὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου ἐπιμελούμενον τοῦ ἑτέρου ἀμελῆσαι πᾶσα ἀνάγκη.
Enchiridion 13
Unlucky is the man who cannot bear bad luck.
Ἀτυχῆ εἶναι τὸν ἀτυχίαν μὴ φέροντα
DL 1.86
Disaster easily finds the one it’s looking for.
Quemcumque quaerit calamitas, facile invenit.
Sent. 515
Will you ever be, my soul, good, simple, unified, and naked, more visible than the body surrounding you? Will you ever taste the disposition of love and affection? Will you ever be full and self-sufficient, wanting nothing, longing for nothing, neither living nor lifeless things for your pleasure? Neither more time to enjoy them longer? Neither a different place or country or pleasant climate? Neither greater harmony with other people? But be satisfied with your present situation, delighting in all that's currently yours, and convince yourself that everything you have comes from the gods, that everything is well and will be well for you, whatever is pleasing to them and whatever they are going to give for the preservation of that perfect living thing—good, just, beautiful—which generates all things, contains all things, surrounds and embraces all dissolving things for the birth of new similar things? Will you ever be such that you can live as a fellow citizen with gods and humans in a way that you neither find fault with them nor are condemned by them?
Meditations 10.1
Do not cease to learn; care makes wisdom grow; prudence is rarely given by long use of time alone.
Discere ne cesses; cura sapientia crescit; Rara datur longo prudentia temporis usu.
IV.27
Handsome women are more or less whimsical; those whims serve as an antidote, so that their beauty may do less harm to men, who, without such a remedy, would never be cured of their love.
Le caprice est dans les femmes tout proche de la beauté, pour être son contre-poison, et afin qu'elle nuise moins aux hommes, qui n'en guériraient pas sans remède.
Of Women