“Happy the man, of mortals happiest he,
Whose quiet mind from vain desires is free;
Whom neither hopes deceive, nor fears torment,
But lives at peace, within himself content;
In thought, or act, accountable to none
But to himself, and to the gods alone.”

“Unless the gods deceive my mind,
That man is forging fetters for himself.”

“It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.”

“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”

“But he who neither thinks for himself nor learns from others, is a failure as a man.”

“Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”

“Only to the extent that a man has emancipated himself…from all that is generic, does he count as a free spirit within a human community. No man is all genus, none is all individuality.”

“That man, I declare, is happy whom nothing makes less strong than he is; he keeps to the heights, leaning upon none but himself; for one who sustains himself by any prop may fall.”

“Not content with real sufferings, the anxious man imposes imaginary ones on himself; he is a being for whom unreality exists, must exist; otherwise where would he obtain the ration of torment his nature demands?”

“The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent:That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder's violence.”