Quotes About Stoicism

An ignorant person is one who is tossed about between elation and despair by external forces and events.

Geef me de moed om alles te accepteren wat niet in mijn vermogen ligt, de kracht om alles te veranderen wat wel in mijn vermogen ligt, en de wijsheid om tussen die twee te onderscheiden.

Show me someone untroubled with disturbing thoughts about illness, danger, death, exile or loss of reputation. By all the gods, I want to see a Stoic!

So-and-so's son died.' ('The question'). Answer: 'Since it's nothing he can control, it isn't bad.

But it's not right of Zeus to do this.' Why? Because he made you tough and proud, removed the stigma of evil from these circumstances and made it possible for you to be happy despite them? Or because he left the door open when things finally don't agree with you? Friend, take advantage of it, and stop blaming God.

Externals include the body and its members, as well as material goods. If you grow attached to any of them as if they were your own, you will incur the penalties prescribed for a thief.

death is nothing to fear in itself, or Socrates would have run from it.

What are you? A human being. If you think of yourself as a unit apart, then it is in accordance with your nature to live to old age, to be rich, and be healthy. But if your view of yourself involves being part of a whole, circumstances may make it right for you to be sick, go on a dangerous journey, endure poverty, even die before your time. Don't complain.

It is better to die poor, while free from fear and grief, than to live surrounded by riches and filled with anxiety.

Whenever distress or displeasure arises in your mind, remind yourself, "This is only my interpretation, not reality itself." Then ask whether it falls within or outside your sphere of power. And, if it is beyond your power to control, let it go.

Continually remind yourself that you are a mortal being, and someday will die.

No digo que no te esté permitido quejarte, sino que no te quejes por dentro

For what else is tragedy than the perturbations ([Greek: pathae]) of men who value externals exhibited in this kind of poetry?

For my part, I can say, 'bring what challenge you please and I will turn it to good account: bring illness, death, poverty, slander, a judgement of death: they will all be converted to advantage by my wand of Hermes.

Stoicism doesn't mean repressing emotion and shunning pleasure, I learned, but, in essence, focusing on what is within our power and letting go of everything we can't control.

Do you think freedom is something good?' 'The greatest good of all.' 'Can anyone in possession of the greatest good be unhappy or unfortunate?' 'No.

But if you try to avoid what you cannot control—sickness, poverty, death—you will inflict useless mental suffering upon yourself.

If you have a favorite cup, remember that it is only a cup that you prefer—if it is broken, you can bear it.

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.

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.

In this body, this universe, this community, it is inevitable that each of us faces some such event. [28] Your job, then, is to appear before the court, say what you have to say and make the best of the situation. [29] Then the judge declares you guilty. 'I wish you well, judge. I did my part, you can decide if you did yours.' Because the judge runs a risk too, don't forget.