Quotes About Mindfulness

If you would cure anger, do not feed it. Say to yourself: 'I used to be angry every day; then every other day; now only every third or fourth day.' When you reach thirty days offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods.

when things seem to have reached that stage, merely say "I won't play any longer", and take your departure; but if you stay, stop lamenting.

Don't hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.

If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.

Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can.

If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...

In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always.

If they are wise, do not quarrel with them; if they are fools, ignore them.

Why do you want to read anyway – for the sake of amusement or mere erudition? Those are poor, fatuous pretexts. Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn't make you peaceful, what good is it?

Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason.

For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death.

Sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy.

Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day – especially death – and you will never have an abject thought, or desire anything to excess.

Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.

You ought to realize, you take up very little space in the world as a whole—your body, that is; in reason, however, you yield to no one, not even to the gods, because reason is not measured in size but sense. So why not care for that side of you, where you and the gods are equals?

What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes. 'How does it come, then?' As God wills.

Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words.

Don't seek that all that comes about should come about as you wish, but wish that everything that comes about should come about just as it does, and then you'll have a calm and happy life.

Remember from now on whenever something tends to make you unhappy, draw on this principle: 'This is no misfortune; but bearing with it bravely is a blessing.

Never say about anything, I have lost it, but only I have given it back.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

The knowledge of what is mine and what is not mine, what I can and cannot do. I must die. But must I die bawling? I must be exiled; but is there anything to keep me from going with a smile, calm and self-composed?