Some interesting stoic quotes:
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
- Waste no more time debating what a good man should be, just be one. 10.16
- At daybreak, when you are reluctant to rise from bed, have this thought ready in your mind: “I am rising to do the work of a human being. Am I still irritable about doing that for which I was born and came into this world? Or was I made for this, that I should nuzzle under the bedclothes and keep warm? 5.1
- Some things are up to us and other are not… Remember, therefore, that if what is naturally slavish you take to be free, and what is not your own to be your own, you will be obstructed, grieve, be distressed, and will blame both gods and men... (Handbook, 1)
- Never to say of anything “I have lost it” but that you have given it back. (Handbook, 11)
- Do not wish for events to turn out as you desire but rather wish for them to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly. (Handbook, 8)
- People are not disturbed by events, but by their judgements about events. (Handbook, 5)
- Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. Letters to Lucilius, 2
- As long as you live, keep learning how to live. Letters to Lucilius, 76
- Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all – the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet. Letters to Lucilius, 78
- It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it. On Providence, 2