Pythagoras on Life

He said that life resembles a festival, where some go to compete for a prize, others to buy or sell, but the best men as spectators; for likewise in life, some men are servile by nature, hunters of fame and profit, while the philosopher hunts for the truth.

Diogenes Laertius - Lives of the eminent philosophers

Aristotle on moderation

Mankind, he used to say, was divided into those who were as thrifty as if they were going to live forever, and those who were as extravagant as if they were were going to die any moment.

Diogenes Laertius - Lives of the eminent philosophers

Philosophy

V:22
Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over it.

La Rochefoucauld - Maxims

What a piece of work is a man

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me -  [Rosencrantz laughs] nor women neither, though by your smiling, you seem to say so.

William Shakespeare - Hamlet
(The New Oxford Shakespeare - The Complete Works, Modern Critical Edition)

Reality is much more complex for human understanding

HAMLET :
There are many things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

William Shakespeare - Hamlet
(The New Oxford Shakespeare - The Complete Works, Modern Critical Edition)

First hint at Rand's philosophy

His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter.

Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead