Quotes About Stoicism

Cersei in 'Game of Thrones' is quite solid and stiff.

I'm an atheist, I always thought, 'This is it.' If there is going to be a heaven, it should be on earth. I feel much happier than most people. I'm fairly stoic about death, but I'm not keen on dying if it's going to be long and protracted. I don't have dark nights of the soul, except occasionally. I'm such a little busy bee.

In my early to mid-20s, a fear of confrontation made it difficult for me to end relationships in a mature or even quasi-sane way. Instead, I would hang on resentfully, praying that my doomed beau would end things first and spare me the displeasure. To add hindrance to hang-up, the men I chose were usually just as stoic as I was.

Colonel Woodcock obviously belonged to the 'stiff upper lip' school of army behaviour: after shouting at his wife to keep watching at the window, he got shot himself and staggered back into the bedroom, telling her, 'It's alright darling, they have only hit outlying portions of me.' Woodcock, in fact, had been hit four times - but he subsequently recovered.

Most days, Bam didn't care what people said to him or about him. Gossip in town wasn't worth a cup of curdled spit.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." –Marcus Aurelius

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?" —SENECA

Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell.

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?'" —Seneca

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." –Marcus Aurelius Emperor of Rome and Stoic philosopher, author of Meditations

Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

Burns points out that the basic idea of cognitive therapy—that our thoughts affect our emotions and mood, not the other way around—goes back a long way: The ancient philosopher Epictetus rested his career on the idea that it is not events that determine your state of mind, but how you decide to feel about the events. This

The less said about life's sores the better.

Another of these strong silent men. The world is full of us.

Mrs Pringle's aspect was that of one who had had bad news round about the year 1900 and never really got over it.

The one who pursues a goal of even-mindedness is neither jubilant with gain nor depressed by loss.

There is no moral to my life - I have none - except: 'Stand up and take it'. The rest is sentiment.

Don't show it and don't panic. Do like the ducks; on the surface stay calm, and below it paddle lile hell

Be assured, I do not suffer from a sense of humor.

As Marcus Aurelius said millennia ago, pain "is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

For the Stoics, one key was seeing that our feelings about life's events, not those events themselves, determine our happiness; we find equanimity by distinguishing what we can control in life from what we cannot.

Calmness is a human superpower. The ability to not overreact or take things personally keeps your mind clear and your heart at peace.

This is the substance of the way of the samurai: if by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.

I have very intense feelings of joy or sadness. I used to not like that so much because I was worried it was girly, and I wanted to be more stoic. I think this happens a lot. When you're 16, there are qualities you wish you didn't have, and then when you're 30, you're like, 'Thank God I have that; otherwise, I'd be living less vividly.'