To get what we want, we must accept some things we don’t want. No rose without a thorn.

If you can’t fight, and you can’t flee, flow.

Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them.

Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.

Trouble will come soon enough, and when he does come receive him as pleasantly as possible. The more amiably you greet him, the sooner he will go away.

We must like what we have when we don’t have what we like.

People are lucky and unlucky … according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

Make a virtue of necessity.