Quotes About Stoicism

Since he brought an exacting and grim seriousness to his tasks in the best of times, he found this same demeanor effective in the worst of times.

So, in order to be courageous, I now have a fairly simple means at my disposal: to accept death.

Let pressure pass over and through you. That way you can't be harmed by it.

I'm pretty sure heroes don't whine. They quietly endure cold, fireless nights. Further proof I'm no hero.

If the hardtack got moldy it was usually thrown away as inedible, but if it just got weevily it was issued anyway. Heating it at the fire would drive the weevils out; more impatient soldiers simply ate it in the dark and tried not to think about it.

One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to master how to remain calm. Calm is a super power.

It] recquires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it.

Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without the least quivering of his own.

Even death may prove unreal at last and stoics be astounded into heaven. Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill-resigned, Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind. That like the crocus budding through the snow, that like a swimmer rising from the deep, that like a burning secret which doth go. Even from the bosom that would hoard and keep, emerge thou mayst from the last whelming sea and prove that death but routs life into victory.

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.

Never meet trouble half-way.

If you are a very ordinary human being, nothing affects you, nothing bothers you, and nothing troubles you. That's how I live my life.

Good God, what does it matter? If life is a tragedy, or a farce, or a disaster, or anything else, what do I care! Let life be what it likes. Give me a drink, that's what I want just now.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

Epictetus was a living example of the Stoic philosophy he embraced, which placed great value on the dignity of the self and a graceful acquiescence to those things over which the self had no control.

Stoics like Marcus had long recommended such a practice—to concentrate entirely and exclusively on the present moment, and if that moment contained no physical suffering, then to be content.

He neither feared to die nor refused to live.

The scene was not a happy one yet we looked upon it in the cold stoical spirit of a soldier; a slight chilling pang and then a return soul and body to the enemy before us.

What could not be changed must be borne. And since nothing could be changed, everything had to be borne.

Fericirea este suma tuturor nenorocirilor de care nu am avut parte.

It's just a flesh wound!

Mona Lisa in her prime smiled in steady composure even though she had just come from the dentist and her lower jaw was swollen.

I generally don't become overexcited about things anyway, I'm just not one of those people. I'm not easily surprised by things either. I think it's because I expect that anything can happen