Quotes About Philosophy

We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us.

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.

Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.

Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!

It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body; for it is better to die than to live badly.

If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.

Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.

Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can.

We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our judgement about them.

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

Don't live by your own rules, but in harmony with nature

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.

What concerns me is not the way things are, but the way people think things are.

God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reach.

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.

Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason.

Freedom is not archived by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it.

You will do the greatest services to the state, if you shall raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.

The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter.

Remind thyself that he whom thou lovest is mortal — that what thou lovest is not thine own; it is given thee for the present, not irrevocably nor for ever, but even as a fig or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year

It is a universal law — have no illusion — that every creature alive is attached to nothing so much as to its own self-interest.

The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects from himself profit (advantage) nor harm, but from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: he expects all advantage and all harm from himself.