Quotes About Philosophy

It has been ordained that there be summer and winter, abundance and dearth, virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole, and (Zeus) has given each of us a body, property, and companions.

Conduct yourself in all matters, grand and public or small and domestic, in accordance with the laws of nature. Harmonizing your will with nature should be your utmost ideal.

What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgements about these things.

When then any man assents to that which is false, be assured that he did not intend to assent to it as false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, as Plato says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true.

Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law. And if any instance of pain or pleasure, glory or disgrace, be set before you, remember that now is the combat, now the Olympiad comes on, nor can it be put off; and that by one failure and defeat honor may be lost or—won.

Death is not dreadful or else it would have appeared dreadful to Socrates.

But to be hanged—is that not unendurable? Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself.

It isn't death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest.

That is the way things are weighed and disagreements settled — when standards are established. Philosophy aims to test and set such standards. And the wise man is advised to make use of their findings right way.

I have learned to see that whatever comes about is nothing to me if it lies beyond the sphere of choice.

Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them.

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

If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Man be true, what remains for men to do but as Socrates did:—never, when asked one's country, to answer, I am an Athenian or a Corinthian, but I am a citizen of the world.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

I want to die, even though I don't have to.

You are a little soul carrying a dead body, as Epictetus said.

Is you naturally entitled, then, to a good father? No, only to a father. Is

Whoever chafes at the conditions dealt by fate is unskilled in the art of life; whoever bears with them nobly and makes wise use of the results is a man who deserves to be considered good.

Resistance is vain in any case; it only leads to useless struggle while inviting grief and sorrow.

None of these things are foretold to me; but either to my paltry body, or property, or reputation, or children, or wife. But to me all omens are lucky, if I will. For whichever of these things happens, it is in my control to derive advantage from it.

It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.

It isn't events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgments about them.

Älä pyri siihen, että kaikki tapahtuisi kuten haluat, vaan halua kaiken tapahtuvan niin kuin se tapahtuu. Silloin elämäsi on tasaista virtaa.

Don't you want to be free of all that? [33] 'But how can I do it?' You've often heard how – you need to suspend desire completely, and train aversion only on things within your power. You should dissociate yourself from everything outside yourself – the body, possessions, reputation, books, applause, as well as office or lack of office. Because a preference for any of them immediately makes you a slave, a subordinate, and prone to disappointment.