"Do not waste the remainder of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some common good. For to speculate about what your neighbor is doing, and why, and what he is saying,…"

"The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts."

"Every soul, the philosopher says, is unwillingly deprived of truth."

"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and the rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself:…"

"Consider the past—a change of empires, and you may foresee the future. For it will be the same kind of thing, and it is impossible for things to deviate from the present order: wherefore to contemplat…"