Quotes About Stoicism

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'

Be content with what you are, and wish not change nor dread your last day, nor long for it.

Whatever may befall you, it was preordained for you from everlasting.

Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man—yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Remember that no man loses other life than that which he lives, nor lives other than that which he loses.

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live death is nigh at hand while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.

Nothing happens to any thing which that thing is not made by nature to bear.

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

She is one of those people who have found serenity because they have never tried to dodge suffering.

When our stoicism interferes with our humanity, we risk developing a wooden emotional life and an equally wooden personality. In contrast, the realization that our ability to work through pain makes us stronger than all of our efforts to exorcise it may in the long run alleviate its burden. It may enable us to take up our destiny as creatures whose very vulnerability renders us capable of inspired and truly awe-inspiring love.

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

Better to suffer than to die.

Try to live the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allocated to him.

Bear and forbear.

As a stoic I must despise injury or, rather, I must not feel it, must not be affected by it so that it cannot violate the freedom of my soul.

"Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff, tenderly. "Do not weep for me. It is chronic."

When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.

He would be lonely all his life. But a man took it for his share and went on.