stoicism quotes from influential philosophers, authors and people
"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
1
"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
2
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
3
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."
4
"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."
5
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."
6
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.."
7
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."
8
"The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts."
9
"This is the mark of perfection of character — to spend each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending."
10
"Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing."
11
"Receive without pride, let go without attachment."
12
"In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business."
13
"When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top — credit for the good deed or a favor in return?"
14
"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."
15
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
16
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
17
"Ignorance is the cause of fear."
18
"While we wait for life, life passes."
19
"Life is long, if you know how to use it."
20
"Cease to hope and you will cease to fear."
21
"Wealth is the slave of a wise man and the master of a fool."
22
"Only time can heal what reason cannot."
23
"While we are postponing, life speeds by."
24
"Hang on to your youthful enthusiasm, you will be able to use them better when you are older."
25
"He who is brave is free."
26
"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."
27
"Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future."
28
"Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue."
29
"We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say."
30
"If you lay violent hands on me, you’ll have my body, but my mind will remain with Stilpo."
31
"Happiness is a good flow of life."
32
"A bad feeling is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason, and against nature."
33
"Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing."
34
"Man conquers the world by conquering himself."
35
"Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it."
36
"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will."
37
"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
38
"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him."
39
"Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself."
40
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."
41
"Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you."
42
"If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, 'He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.'"
43
"Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unraveling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded."
44
"The soul is joined to and is separated from the body. Therefore, the soul is corporeal."
45
"I myself think that the wise man meddles little or not at all in affairs and does his own things."
46
"Vice cannot be removed completely, nor is it right that it should be removed."
47
"Although it is true that by fate all things are forced and linked by a necessary and dominant reason, nevertheless the character of our minds is subject to fate in a manner corresponding to their nature and quality."
48
"Death is the separation of soul from body."
49
"The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues."
232
"No man is happy who does not think himself so."
233
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
234
"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power."
235
"It is within the power of every man to live his life nobly, but of no man to live forever. Yet so many of us hope that life will go on forever, and so few aspire to live nobly."
236
"Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."
239
"Between stimulus and response, there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
337
"There is nothing in life that can't be handled. If we choose, there is no situation in which we are not free. The road to freedom is also the road to happiness."
338
"But if there is no harm, to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements [himself] for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is according to nature."
341
"A man must live conformably to the universal nature, which means, as the emperor explains it in many passages, that a man's actions must be conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as a citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human family."
345
"A man should have an object or purpose in life, that he may direct all his energies to it; of course a good object. He who has not one object or purpose in life, cannot be one and the same all through his life."
346
"Happiness was not the direct object of a Stoic's life. There is no rule of life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own happiness. Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest that they have."
347
"The end of a man is, as already explained, to live conformably to nature, and he will thus obtain happiness, tranquility of mind, and contentment."
348
"No man is free who is not a master of himself."
406
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it."
407
"The obstacle is the way."
408
"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."
409
"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body."
410
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it."
411
"We must be diligent in our pursuit of virtue, for the resistance of our vices is strong."
412
"The only true disability is the inability to accept challenges."
413
"The wise man sees his difficulties as a challenge and not as a stumbling block."
414
"Do not waste what remains of your life in speculating about your neighbors, unless with a view to some mutual benefit."
415
"We should always be asking ourselves: Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?"
416
"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
417