Quotes About Stoicism

7. Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been.

No thefts of free will reported."[—Epictetus.]

A poor soul burdened with a corpse,' Epictetus calls you.

All men suffer, but not all men pity themselves.

For times when you feel pain: See that it doesn't disgrace you, or degrade your intelligence—doesn't keep it from acting rationally or unselfishly. And in most cases what Epicurus said should help: that pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don't magnify them in your imagination.

Why doth a little thing said or done against thee make thee sorry? It is no new thing; it is not the first, nor shall it be the last, if thou live long. At best suffer patiently, if thou canst not suffer joyously.

3. Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it's unendurable Ã¢â'¬Â¦ then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature. 4.

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to bear this constantly in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.

Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away.

What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself. That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind.

You may leave this life at any moment: have this possibility in your mind in all that you do or say or think. Now departure from the world of men is nothing to fear. If gods exist: because they would not involve you in any harm. If they do not exist, or if they have no care for humankind, then what is life to me in a world devoid of gods, or devoid of providence?

These things thou must always have in mind: What is the nature of the universe, and what is mine—in particular: This unto that what relation it hath: what kind of part, of what kind of universe it is: And that there is nobody that can hinder thee, but that thou mayest always both do and speak those things which are agreeable to that nature, whereof thou art a part.

Consider how quickly all things are dissolved and resolved:

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men, when it is not in relation to some common good, when by it thou art hindered from some other better work.

52. You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.

Now it is true that these may impede my action, but they are no impediments to my affects and disposition, which have the power of acting conditionally and changing: for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a furtherance to an act; and an obstacle on the road helps us along this road.

Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say. It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change.

A man without ever the least appearance of anger, or any other passion; able at the same time most exactly to observe the Stoic Apathia, or unpassionateness, and yet to be most tender-hearted: ever of good credit; and yet almost without any noise, or rumour: very learned, and yet making little show.

At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.

How cruel it is not to allow a man to strive after the things which appear to them to be suitable to their nature and profitable! And yet in a manner thou dost not allow them to do this, when thou art vexed because they do wrong. For they are certainly moved towards things because they suppose them to be suitable to their nature and profitable to them - But it is not so - Teach them, then, and show them without being angry.

Let not the future trouble you; for you will come to it, if come you must, bearing with you the same reason which you are using now to meet the present.

You have embarked, made the voyage, and come to shore; get out. If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without sensation, you will cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption.

You should always look on human life as short and cheap. Yesterday sperm: tomorrow a mummy or ashes.

consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed. Ninth