Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
Business or toil is merely utilitarian. It is necessary but does not enrich or ennoble a human life.
The energy or active exercise of the mind constitutes life.
Life is full of chances and changes, and the most prosperous of men may in the evening of his days meet with great misfortunes.
The goal of working is to have free time.
But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.
Life in the true sense is perceiving or thinking.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
