Stoicism Quotes

“Sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy.”
― Epictetus

“Hour by hour resolve firmly to do what comes to hand with dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the desire to create an impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot. See how little man needs to master, for his days to flow on in quietness and piety: he has but to observe these few counsels, and the gods will ask nothing more.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“But is life really worth so much? Let us examine this; it's a different inquiry. We will offer no solace for so desolate a prison house; we will encourage no one to endure the overlordship of butchers. We shall rather show that in every kind of slavery, the road of freedom lies open. I will say to the man to whom it befell to have a king shoot arrows at his dear ones [Prexaspes], and to him whose master makes fathers banquet on their sons' guts [Harpagus]: 'What are you groaning for, fool?... Everywhere you look you find an end to your sufferings. You see that steep drop-off? It leads down to freedom. You see that ocean, that river, that well? Freedom lies at its bottom. You see that short, shriveled, bare tree? Freedom hangs from it.... You ask, what is the path to freedom? Any vein in your body.”
― Seneca, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

“Just as the earth that bears the man who tills and digs it, to bear those who speak ill of them, is a quality of the highest respect.”
― Thiruvalluvar, Thirukkural

“Why be concerned about others, come to that, when you've outdone your own self? Set yourself a limit which you couldn't even exceed if you wanted to, and say good-bye at last to those deceptive prizes more precious to those who hope for them than to those who have won them. If there were anything substantial in them they would sooner or later bring a sense of fullness; as it is they simply aggravate the thirst of those who swallow them.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“It does good also to take walks out of doors, that our spirits may be raised and refreshed by the open air and fresh breeze: sometimes we gain strength by driving in a carriage, by travel, by change of air, or by social meals and a more generous allowance of wine.”
― Seneca

“Love sometimes injures. Friendship always benefits, After friendship is formed you must trust, but before that you must judge.”
― Seneca

“...we can do some historical research to see how our ancestors lived. We will quickly discover that we are living in what to them would have been a dream world that we tend to take for granted things that our ancestors had to live without...”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“A properly educated leader, especially when harassed and under pressure, will know from his study of history and the classics that circumstances very much like those he is encountering have occurred from time to time on this earth since the beginning of history. He will avoid the self-indulgent error of seeing himself in a predicament so unprecedented, so unique, as to justify his making an exception to law, custom or morality in favor of himself. The making of such exceptions has been the theme of public life throughout much of our lifetimes. For twenty years, we've been surrounded by gamesmen unable to cope with the wisdom of the ages. They make exceptions to law and custom in favor of themselves because they choose to view ordinary dilemmas as unprecedented crises.”
― James B. Stockdale

“Oh, dear me!" he lamented. "The raft has floated off and I suppose it's gone down that awful hole by now."
"Well, never mind. We're not on it," said Snufkin gaily. "What's a kettle here or there when you're out looking for a comet!”
― Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland

“To want to know more than is sufficient is a form of intemperance. Apart from which this kind of obsession with the liberal arts turns people into pedantic, irritating, tactless, self-satisfied bores, not learning what they need simply because they spend their time learning things they will never need. The scholar Didymus wrote four thousand works: I should feel sorry him if he had merely read so many useless works.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Death would not surprise us as often as it does, if we let go of the misbelief that newborns are less mortal than the elderly.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Even the least of our activities ought to have some end in view.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Man is mostly a collection of emotions, most of which he would do better not to be feeling.”
― Neel Burton

“[Philosophers] have come to envy the philologist and the mathematician, and they have taken over all the inessential elements in those studies—with the result that they know more about devoting care and attention to their speech than about devoting such attention to their lives.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Love sometimes injures. Friendship always benefits”
― Seneca the Younger

“It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“Most of us are “living the dream” living, that is, the dream we once had for ourselves.”
― William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

“These...xistential qualms you suffer, they just mean you're truly human. I aked how I might remedy them. "You don´t remedy them. You live thru them.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“It was as if I'd lost some cosmic game of musical chairs; the song had stopped, I was left standing, and there was simply nothing to be dine about it.”
― Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors

“And here are two of the most immediately useful thoughts you will dip into. First that things cannot touch the mind: they are external and inert; anxieties can only come from your internal judgement. Second, hat all these things you see will change almost as you look at them, and then will be no more. Constantly bring to mind all that you yourself have already seen changed. The universe is change: life is judgement.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“But Moominmamma was quite unperturbed.
"Well, well!" she said, "it seems to me that our guests are having a very good time."
"I hope so," replied Moominpappa. "Pass me a banana, please dear.”
― Tove Jansson, Finn Family Moomintroll

“Emilio was certainly within his rights not to reveal the sordid details of his childhood even to his friends. Or perhaps especially to his friends, whose good opinion of him, he might feel, would not survive the revelations.”
― Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

“Quamquam scripsit artem rhetorieam Cleanthes, Chrysippus etiam, sed sic, ut si quis obmutescere concupierit, nihil aliud legere debeat.”
― Cícero

“I smile to catch the piranhas from swimming out of my mouth.”
― Evan Mariah Pettit

“Saiba que um teto de palha abriga o homem
tão bem quanto o de ouro.”
― Seneca, Aprendendo a Viver

“The Greeks not only face facts. They have no desire to escape from them.”
― Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

“Fourteen years without a mother had me believe I could be stoic when I finally met her.”
― Maria V. Snyder, Magic Study

“In Tsurani culture, forgiveness was simply a less shameful form of weakness than capitulation.”
― Raymond E. Feist

“At the bar on the Favoritenstrasse, Julius the policeman talked to us about dignity, evolution, the great Darwin and the great Nietzsche. I translated so that my good friend Ulises could understand what he was saying, although I didn’t understand any of it. The prayer of the bones, said Julius. The yearning for health. The virtue of danger. The tenacity of the forgotten. Bravo, said my good friend Ulises. Bravo, said everyone else. The limits of memory. The wisdom of plants. The eye of parasites. The agility of the earth. The merit of the soldier. The cunning of the giant. The hole of the will. Magnificent, said my good friend Ulises in German. Extraordinary.”
― Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives