Quotes About Stoicism

Savoir souffrir sans se plaindre, ça c'est la seule chose pratique, c'est la grande science, la leçon à apprendre, la solution du problème de la vie. [Knowing how to suffer without complaining is the only practical thing, it's the great science, the lesson to learn, the solution to the problem of life.]

Epictetus, who said, "It's not events, but our opinions about them, which cause us suffering.

will not tremble," Cicero wrote in the first century BC, "however much it is tortured.

the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

Lao Tzu wrote: "Know the personal, yet keep to the impersonal: Accept the world as it is. Then the Tao will be luminous inside you, and you will return to the Uncarved Block." There is so much philosophy packed into this verse that it summarizes central teachings about happiness from three great ancient traditions: those not only from Taoism, but also from Buddhism and Stoicism

The three weapons to use against axe cuts are: (a) sense enough not to get cut, (b) a good working knowledge of how to apply a tourniquet, if the worst occurs, and (c) a philosophical attitude.

IF YOU CAN KEEP YOUR HEAD WHEN ALL ABOUT YOU ARE LOSING THEIRS AND BLAMING IT ON YOU

Olivier looked at him blankly. But the Chief Inspector had seen that look before. It was, in fact, almost impossible to look blank. Unless the person wanted to. A blank face to the Chief Inspector meant a frantic mind.

Or as Seneca expresses it, in the Letters to Lucilius: 'You must dispense with these two things: fear of the future, and the recollection of ancient ills. The latter no longer concerns me, the former has yet to concern me.

Now, in the tradition of Stoicism, the innermost essence of the world is harmony, order – both true and beautiful – which the Greeks referred to by the term kosmos.

The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

All things are cause for either laughter or weeping.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Our (The Stoic) motto, as you know, is live according to nature.

Therefore death is nothing to us, it matters not one jot, since the nature of the mind is understood to be mortal.

cogitationis poenam nemo patitur!1.

The Stoics denied the concept of progress. There might be a little advance here, some improvement there—cosmology in their time, dentistry in ours—but in the long run the balance of things, such as good and evil, beauty and ugliness, joy and misery, remains constant.

I hope he didn't suffer too much." "He did," she said. "But he was very stoical about it. It's those of us who are left behind who'll have to suffer now.

Instead of being affected to the things that make you feel bad, why not smile and let it pass.

To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.

Set honour in one eye and death i' the other, And I will look on both indifferently.

Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city.