"Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness."
- Marcus Aurelius
"Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil."
- Marcus Aurelius
"Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?"
- Marcus Aurelius
"Confine yourself to the present."
- Marcus Aurelius
"Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back."
- Marcus Aurelius
"The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it."
- Marcus Aurelius
"The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness."
- Michel de Montaigne
"On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom."
- Michel de Montaigne
"I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself."
- Michel de Montaigne
"If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I."
- Marcus Aurelius
"Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens."
- Michel de Montaigne
"If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love."
- Michel de Montaigne
"Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness."
- Michel de Montaigne
"There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened."
- Michel de Montaigne
"I speak the truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older."
- Michel de Montaigne
"Every man has within himself the entire human condition"
- Michel de Montaigne
"Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head"
- Michel de Montaigne
"No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately."
- Michel de Montaigne
"Saying is one thing and doing is another"
- Michel de Montaigne
"Love without sacrifice is like theft"
- Nassim Taleb
"Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking."