Montene

“Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”
― Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness

“Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”
― Epictetus

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
― Seneca

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
― Marcus Aurelius , Meditations