Quotes About Stoicism

If you remove your judgement of anything that seems painful, you yourself stand quite immune to pain. 'What self?' Reason. 'But I am not just reason.' Granted. So let reason cause itself no pain, and if some other part of you is in trouble, it can form its own judgement for itself.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.

Not to be overwhelmed by what you imagine, but just do what you can and should. And

Remember, too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.

short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.

If asked, he would no doubt have responded that "true" slavery is the self-enslavement of the mind to emotion and desire

17. If a thing is in your own power, why do you do it? But if it is in the power of another, whom do you blame? The atoms (chance) or the gods? Both are foolish. You must blame nobody. For if you can, correct that which is the cause; but if you cannot do this, correct at least the thing itself; but if you cannot do even this, of what use is it to you to find fault? For nothing should be done without a purpose.

Nothing befalls anything which that thing is not naturally made to bear. The same experience befalls another, and he is unruffled and remains unharmed; either because he is unaware that it has happened or because he exhibits greatness of soul. Is it not strange that ignorance and complaisance are stronger than wisdom...?

The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can't lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don't have?

You've seen that. Now look at this. Don't be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself. Someone has done wrong … to himself. Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning. Life is short. That's all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thoughtfully, justly. Unrestrained moderation.

Though thou shouldst be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

Finally, therefore, remember your retreat into this little domain which is yourself, and above all be not disturbed nor on the rack, but be free and look at things as a man, a human being, a citizen, a creature that must die.

The gods live forever and yet they don't seem annoyed at having to put up with human beings and their behavior throughout eternity. And not only put up with but actively care for them. And you—on the verge of death—you still refuse to care for them, although you're one of them yourself.

on every occasion a man should ask himself, Is this one of the unnecessary things?

But death and life, success and failure, pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, all these happen to good and bad alike, and they are neither noble nor shameful—and hence neither good nor bad.

Remember, however, that you are formed by nature to bear everything whose tolerability depends on your own opinion to make it so, by thinking that it is in your interest or duty to do so.

That way you'll see human life for what it is. Smoke. Nothing. Especially when you recall that once things alter they cease to exist through all the endless years to come. Then why such turmoil?

The pomps and glories which he despised were all his; what to most men is an ambition or a dream, to him was a round of weary tasks which nothing but the stern sense of duty could carry him through. And he did his work well.

30. A philosopher without clothes and one without books. "I have nothing to eat," says he, as he stands there half-naked, "but I subsist on the logos." And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too.

Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee? Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around. But then thou must also avoid being carried about the other way; for those too are triflers who have wearied themselves in life by their activity, and yet have no object to which to direct every movement, and, in a word, all their thoughts.

Remember, however, that thou art formed by nature to bear everything, with respect to which it depends on thy own opinion to make it endurable and tolerable, by thinking that it is either thy interest or thy duty to do this.

nor does he deviate from the way which leads to the end of life, to which a man ought to come pure, tranquil, ready to depart, and without any compulsion perfectly reconciled to his lot.

5. Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee.

Fancy not to thyself things future, as though they were present but of those that are present, take some aside, that thou takest most benefit of, and consider of them particularly, how wonderfully thou wouldst want them, if they were not present.