People seek retreats in the country, by the sea, in the mountains — but you can retire into yourself whenever you choose.

Begin each day by telling yourself: today I shall meet with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

-- Hypatia

It is not I who conform to the stars; the stars conform to me.

-- Plotinus

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.

-- Seneca

Others are others, I am I — regardless, I walk the path I walk.

-- Kitarō Nishida

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

-- Phil Knight

No one has the right to obey.

-- Hannah Arendt