Quotes About Philosophy

It is not the events but our viewpoint toward events that is the determining factor. We ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than removing tumors and abscesses from the body.

If anything except the honourable is good, we shall be hounded by greed for life, and by greed for the things which provide life with its furnishings, – an intolerable state, subject to no limits, unstable. The only good, therefore, is that which is honourable, that which is subject to bounds.

What's odd in asserting that what's bad for anything is what runs contrary to its nature? You say it for everything else, why make humanity the sole exception?

Pidä silmiesi edessä joka päivä kuolema ja maanpako ja kaikki kauheana näyttäytyvä, ennen kaikkea kuolema. Silloin et koskaan ajattele mitään matalamielistä etkä himoitse mitään likaa.

Stoicism was founded in the third century BC by Zeno of Citium; Cleanthes succeeded him as head of the school. But it was Cleanthes' successor, Chrysippus (d. 208 BC), who contributed most to the development of Stoic doctrine and deserves most of the credit for what Stoicism eventually became – the dominant philosophy of the post-classical era.

Act in this way regarding spouses, children, honors, offices, and wealth, and you will become worthy to feast with the gods. More than this—if you abstain from the rich desserts that come your way, passing them on to others, you will become worthy to rule with the gods. This was the way of Diogenes and Heraclitus, and they are now venerated as divine.

For when you have subjected to externals what is your own, then be a slave and do not resist, and do not sometimes choose to be a slave, and sometimes not choose, but with all your mind be one or the other.

Don't look for it in externals; it isn't in the body, and, if you doubt me, just look at Myron or Ophellius. It isn't in wealth, look at Croesus, or look at the rich of today: you'll see how unhappy they are.

No, I cannot escape death, [10] but at least I can escape the fear of it – or do I have to die moaning and groaning too?

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

Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit.

Find satisfaction in following your philosophy. If you want to be respected, start by respecting yourself.

has any of you such power as Socrates had, in all his intercourse with men, of winning them over to his own convictions?

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. CXXIII

Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me,'50 he says, and: 'If it pleases the gods, so be it.

We get angry because we put too high a premium on things that they can steal. Don't attach such value to your clothes, and you won't get angry with the thief who takes them.

ask yourself how Socrates or Zeno

Be confident in everything outside the will, and cautious in everything under the will's control.

And yet, while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others: to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends and slaves.

And yet, while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others: to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends and slaves. [15] And, being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them.

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off – see, it doesn't bite.

If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher, nor suffer others to call you so. Say rather: He is in error; for my desires, my impulses are unaltered. I give in my adhesion to what I did before; nor has my mode of dealing with the things of sense undergone any change.

Show me a man who though sick is happy, who though in danger is happy, who though in prison is happy, and I'll show you a Stoic.

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