Quotes About Philosophy

Remember this, very little is needed to make a happy life.

Think on this doctrine,--that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.

Whatever may befall thee, it was preordained for thee from everlasting.

Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Caton.

The victorious cause pleased the gods, but the vanquished pleased Cato.

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

To no man make yourself a boon companion: Your joy will be less but less will be your grief

You are a little soul carrying about a corpse.

Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same.

How very near us stand the two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in which all things disappear.

The gods sustain and guide all their works.

Even the stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at; that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility to be found?

Reflect frequently upon the instability of things, and how very fast the scenes of nature are shifted. Matter is in perpetual flux. Change is always and everywhere at work; it strikes through causes and effects, and leaves nothing fixed and permanent.

I can at once become happy anywhere, for he is happy who has found himself a happy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the functions of reason, in warrantable desires and virtuous practice.

Look deep into the hearts of men, and see what delights and disgusts the wise.

To expect an impossibility is madness.

As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.

Remember that all is opinion.

It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care not about it.

Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more.

Death--a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.

Reason and the reasoning faculty need no foreign assistance, but are sufficient for their own purposes. They move within themselves, and make directly for the point in view. Wherefore, acts in accordance with them are called right acts, for they lead along the right road.

All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.