The Stoic - Theodore Dreiser

Take things as they come and make the best of them.

There was something in sensual desire which superseded and therefore must be superior to reason and will.

Life went with beauty and desire; where they were not was nothing.

Only he who meditates can realize truth.

Do good for its own sake. Then alone will come perfect non-attachment.

When you help the poor, feel not the slightest pride.
Be thankful for the opportunity to give.

You are not educated when merely you are well-schooled.
You are truly educated only when you are enlightened by inner truth.
For inner truth takes dead facts and makes them live; it inspires the heart to the use of knowledge for the service of others.
It is through the heart, not the intellect, that the Lord is seen.

We are never born and we never die.
Each atom is a living thing, leading its own independent life.
These atoms combine into groups for an end, and the groups manifest a group intelligence, so long as it remains a group, these groups again combining in turn and forming bodies of a more complex nature, which serve as vehicles for higher forms of consciousness.
When death comes to the physical body, the cells separate and scatter and that which we call decay sets in.
The force which held the cells together is withdrawn, and they become free to go their own way and to form new combinations.

Beauty—that wraith of perfection that came and went as a shadow.

Be grateful that the poor man is there so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself.

It was love that made life, certainly not wealth alone.

It may be that there are other interests that come before those of the individual, but in favoring himself, he appears, as a rule, to favor others.

Only the weak running to a mythical saviour or god for aid.
And the strong using this belief in a god to further the conquest of the weak.