365+ Best Stoicism Quotes & Sayings | Happiness & Wisdom Stoic Quotes

Stoic Quotes on Fear, Depression & Pain

1. “The courageous man is not the one who does not feel afraid, but the one who conquers those feelings.” -Seneca
2. “No man can tame his greatest fear. A man can only learn to re-capture that which has fled from him.” -Seneca
3. “Fear is an illusion when facing death; for what else would it matter?” -Marcus Aurelius
4. “We are all of us in fear of the people we mean to kill.” -Pablo Neruda
5. “Fear is a good whip. Fear can drive away the great enemy of health and happiness, cowardice.” -Seneca
6. “The man who fears nothing is either impotent or mad.” -Seneca
7. “Inaction breeds more danger than action.” -Marcus Aurelius
8. “Fear is the I-don’t-want-to-be-lonesome-and-die disease.” -Norman O. Brown
9. “The greatest remedy for fear is courage.” -Plato
10. “A coward dies a thousand deaths.” -William Shakespeare
11. “Fear is like fire . . . it makes you warm but it can also burn you.” -David Forrest
12. “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for, upon it, all others depend. ” -Cicero
13. “Courage is not a virtue of the timid, but rather the trait of men that are undaunted by danger or who know how to meet it with courage.” -Marcus Aurelius
14. “We need fear for safety and freedom, so that we may develop our greatest virtues.” -Marcus Aurelius
15. “Courage is love in action. Love in action is courage.” -Albert Schweitzer
16. “The greatest dangers arise from fear of one’s own weakness.” -Marcus Aurelius
17. “Fear tends to beget fear. If you suffer one thing you are likely to suffer more.” -Seneca
18. “Nothing is more frightful than uncertainty; nothing more frightening than the fear of death.” -Thomas Hobbes
19. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” -Maya Angelou
20. “The secret to happiness is courage. The secret to courage is faith.” -Benjamin Disraeli
21. “To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.” -Jodi Picoult
22. “The valiant never taste of death but once.” -William Shakespeare
23. “Only a life lived for others is worth living. ” -Albert Einstein
24. “He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.” -Lao Tzu
25. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” -Romans 12:21
26. “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca
27. “Have unwavering faith in God, then move forward. Every obstacle yields to faith.” -Dinah Washington
28. “It’s wise to fear God and to worship him, but foolish to fear either one if he is always on your side.” -Thomas Jefferson
29. “If you love life, don’t just sit there. Move. Do something about it.” -Mark Twain
30. “When we are afraid, we make ourselves small. When we are courageous, we make ourselves great.” -Benjamin Disraeli
31. “Courage is like the wind… If you’re not pushing against it you can’t understand it. ” -Lily Tomlin
32. “Courage is being scared to death… but saddling up anyway.” -John Wayne
33. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” –Mark Twain
34. “The way to gain strength is to be weak, and the way to gain courage is to have been courageous once in a great while.” -John Greenleaf Whittier
35. “The difference between the man who fails and the failure is that the failure (chuckles) has just begun to fail.” -Benjamin Disraeli
36. “People with courage don’t mind fear, but they don’t fall into its trap…” -Robert Louis Stevenson
37. “We are all afraid of something…most people are just afraid of different things.” -Unknown
38. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.
39. “Courage is the greatest of all virtues.” -William Shakespeare
40. “The brave man fears nothing; he is not dismayed when his heart is torn by a hundred griefs; he does not tremble when he loses all that he holds dear; no darkness can bereave him of his wise tranquility, nor any terror could derange his happy soul.” -Marcus Aurelius
41. “The bravest man in the world is more afraid than anyone else.” -Unknown
42. “The difference between a coward and a leader is the leader goes out to face the danger while the coward stays back and sends others.” -Gautama Buddha
43. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he’s just braver five minutes longer.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
44. “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
45. “The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.” -Denis Waitley
46. “Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” -Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
47. “True bravery is in facing danger while caring for those we love” -Unknown
48. “The bravest thing a person can do is live a life of quiet desperation.” -A. A. Milne
49. “Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the presence of knowing.” -Unknown
50. “If you are brave enough to try, you will find out that courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the ability to face it and overcome it.” -Unknown
51. “Courage is the first thing that gets killed in an accident.” -Eugene O’Neill
52. “If you are brave enough to try, you will find out that life is not as hard as you think” Unknown
53. “The brave man is one who knows the difference between what he does and what he does not know.” -Epicurus
54. “What we call courage is mainly an unextinguishable desire to live. And this desire is so powerful, that even if the life it leads seems otherwise insignificant in itself, or devoid of comfort, adventure, and satisfaction of any kind, its power to sustain us in hiding the truth from ourselves is inexhaustible.” -Albert Camus
55. “When you’re sad or blue, remember there’s a million other people who feel the same way you do.” -Unknown
56. “When we are depressed, our thinking tends to become stagnant and ineffectual. We lose our sense of creative spontaneity, and most of us become deadened to the world around us. We no longer give a damn about anything or anyone, and it takes courage for us to do something that is out of the ordinary. It takes courage to not give up. By being honest about the depression we feel, it can help us to overcome it.” -Unknown
57. “I think grief, like happiness, is part joyous and part empty.

Stoicism Quotes Seneca

1. “He who fears danger can never find a companion for his lust.” – Seneca
2. “I have often wondered how people manage to get on with their lives when they have so little to think about, but so much to worry about.” – Seneca
3. “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength. This is why the skillful man, who feels no anxiety, is always master of tomorrow.” – Seneca
4. “What you spend years fearing and wishing for, simply comes to you by chance.” – Seneca
5. “Anxiety never goes away — only our assessment of it changes.” – Seneca
6. “It is not possible to live a good life without sometimes living it in vain.” – Seligman
7. “Anxiety is the great enemy of mankind, the canker of all our virtues.” – Seneca
8. “Let your face shine in happiness, but not in a showy way. Happiness is more easily kept when you do not glare at everybody.” – Seneca
9. “All men fear death, all men fear folly, but no man fears pain.” – Seneca
10. “Today is yesterday’s tomorrow.” – Seneca the Younger
11. “You will not get anywhere if your strength is reserved for today; you must maintain some in reserve for tomorrow. Otherwise, tomorrow will come with a vengeance.” – Seneca
12. “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” -Seneca
13. It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it. Seneca
14. “People are like plants. They are trained to bring forth their own fruit.”-Seneca
15. “A man should learn to think so well that he need not think at all.”-Seneca
16. “If after having reflected on the matter you do not find that every human endeavor is wiser than many, consider yourself an exception.”-Seneca
17. “What is great in others is great in ourselves, and what is small in others is small in ourselves.” -Seneca
18. “In prosperity, as in adversity, we must be able to say without shame to our fellow-citizens: I have been content.”-Seneca.
19. “Every man knows in his heart what he himself could do and had better leave undisturbed.”-Seneca
20. “In prosperity, as in adversity, we must be able to say without shame to our fellow-citizens: I have been content.”-Seneca

Seneca Quotes on Wisdom

1. “Everywhere is nowhere.”
2. “When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”
3. “It is in giving that we receive.” – Seneca
4. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do.”
5. “If we could see the invisible, we would be able to do the impossible.
6. “It is in giving that we receive.” – Seneca
7. “A skilled athlete does not need strong muscles but a flexible will.”
8. “Be like water making its way through cracks and fissures”
9. “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.”
10. “Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.” – Seneca
11. “As soon as you trust yourself you will know how to live.”
12. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
13. “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.”
14. “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”
15. “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”
16. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
17. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

Stoic Quotes on Anxiety

1. “Pain has an end; misery has none.” – Epictetus
2. “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. You must consecrate your life, for you are worth less than nothing.” – Nelson Mandela
3. “The only thing that’s constant in this world is change.” – Marcus Aurelius
4. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
5. “The wise man will not seek power, for power corrupts, and those who seek it are corrupted by it.” – Marcus Aurelius
6. “It does not matter what the mind believes, so long as the will is set! This is true faith. This is the greatest of all virtues.” – Albert Pike
7. “Anxiety, like fear, can actually make you feel better in a very short amount of time.” – Robert Sapolsky
8. “If you have never been sick, you cannot know what it’s like to be ill.” – Robert M. Pirsig
9. “Pain can never be conquered, only endured.” – Zeno
10. “If you lead a life of pleasure and luxury, you will eventually find yourself at the foot of an executioner’s block.” – Nikos Kazantzakis
11. “No one has ever become poor by earning more money.” – Benjamin Franklin
12. “All our ideas about what life is supposed to be like are just that – ideas; they are not reality; they are just ways of life, being lived, and sometimes with quite admirable results. But it is not reality.” – Albert Camus
13. “To live with death is to be always in the shadow of death. It is a difficult and dangerous way of life, but there are worse. The essence of tragedy lies in the conflict between the loud cry of doctrine and the secret doubt of hearts.” – David Herbert Lawrence
14. “To wish to be happy for a year, plant beans; to wish to be happy for a lifetime, plant trees.” – Wusu Chanshi (Japanese Zen Master)
15. “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.” – Jim Valvano
16. “You need all your wits about you, especially when your heart and soul are on the line.” – Cormac McCarthy
17. “It is a curious thing about strength, that when most men think they are strong, they are often weak; and when most men think they are weak, many of them often have the illusion of strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
18. “Make yourself into an island of reining power in a sea of uncertainty.” – Marcus Aurelius
19. “Being happy does not mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” – Steve Maraboli
20. “The first step to dealing with a problem is accepting responsibility for it. The next is changing it.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
21. “The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish and start saying ‘I will.'” – RuPaul
22. “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Christopher Columbus
23. “A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” – John Burroughs
24. “You are responsible for your attitude – not the way others act.” – Wayne Dyer
25. “I will either find a way or make one.” – Hannibal Barca
26. “If we do not change, we cease to exist.” – Heraclitus of Ephesus
27. “The purpose of living is to discover your gift. The purpose of gift-giving is to exchange it.” – David Bohm
28. “The problem with the world isn’t that people know too little, it’s that they know too much.” – Albert Einstein
29. “To obtain knowledge, one must try to go beyond what can be known.” – Albert Einstein
30. “If you think you are standing on conclusion, step off!” – Sir Isaac Newton
31. “The most important thing is to not stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein
32. “It is error only, which needs a microscope to correct.” – Voltaire
33. “No one knows better than you do what’s right for you – what your priorities are, what you should eat, or how much sleep you really need – so just do it!” – Mark Twain
34. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd (American scientist)
35. “Never believe anything in life for which there is no evidence. The day you believe something for which there is no evidence, you cease to be interested in the truth.” – Carl Sagan
36. “How do you know what you’re thinking? Because it’s the same thought over and over again.” – Ned Flanders
37. “Your house may look like a castle to you now, but one day it could look more like a prison than a home.” – Jodi Picoult

Stoic Quotes on Love

1. “The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
2. “If we loved each other less, we would be spared the heavy price of loving each other more.” – Cicero
3. “Loving anyone means risking that person’s rejection.” – Nietzsche
4. “You are my better self, and I would not be what I am without you.” – Homer
5. “My beloved is mine and I am his.” – Shakespeare
6. “In a real sense, the greatest test of love is being honest enough to appreciate those who can never change or disappoint you.” – Nora Ephron
7. “Do not tell the woman that she will inspire men to great deeds; for a woman inspired by a man inspires no one.” – Seneca
8. “How many people do you know who put their friends’ needs above their own?” ~ Seneca
9. “Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.” – Buddha
10. “The secret of a good marriage is to remember that you love your spouse more than s/he deserves.” – Burton Hillis
11. “Loving takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” ~ James A. Baldwin
12. “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
13. “To feel infinite love is to feel your pain and the pain of the world, just as it is – uncensored. It’s to know that you are not alone in your suffering, that you are connected – intimately – with all people. To experience this is to be human.” ~ Bell Hooks
14. “I have always had an exaggerated opinion of myself for which I paid a heavy price. I am astonished at the vanity of others and how it blinds them. They can’t see themselves as others see them.” – Oscar Wilde
15. “We must not confuse love with the desire to possess. Possession is not love; it is only one of love’s means. By making it an end we turn it into a means for its own sake and thus make the loved person, who should be free, into a slave.” ~ Erich Fromm
16. “But I will never stop loving you.” – Fernando Pessoa
17. “Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” – Robert Heinlein
18. “The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.” – Henry Miller
19. “Love conquers all things except poverty and a toothache.” – Mae West
20. “To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.” – Benjamin Disraeli
21. “Love is blind, and so are its disguises.” – Andre Gide
22. “Love is the pursuit of justice where there is injustice, the defense of the oppressed where there is oppression, and resistance to evil wherever it exists.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
23. “I love thee not for who thou art, but for who I am when I am with thee.” – Victor Hugo
24. “I love each one of you more than you’ll ever know,” ~ Buddha
25. “Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.” – H. L. Mencken
26. “Let us therefore prepare ourselves to meet the love of God, which loved us first.” – St. John of Thebes
27. “True love asks not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” – Robert Browning
28. “If you truly love someone, then when they are gone you want to die and be with them again.” – Paulo Coelho
29. “To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
30. “We can’t make the other person love us. All we can do is cultivate loving relationships.” ~ Adele Faber
31. “I love you like no one else, like no one else, does.” – Eminem
32. “When life knocks you down hold your head high and love on.” – Anonymous”
33. “To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.” – Robert Morier
34. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
35. “Love is not a maybe thing. You know when you love someone.” – Keanu Reeves
36. “It’s hard to tell your mind to stop loving someone when your heart still does.” – Anonymous
37. “Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any fool may feel but which a wise person would know instinctively isn’t really love.” – Richard Branson
38. “God never gives you more than you can cope with.” – Oscar Wilde
39. “You can’t love what you don’t know.” – Unknown
40. “Love and grief together make a life.” – William Shakespeare”
41. “The only way to know how much God loves you is to trust Him with everything.” – Marianne Williamson
42. “I wouldn’t give my life for any man, but for thee.” – Dante Alighieri
43. “To love ourselves means to know who we are, and not be ashamed of our personality.” – Steven Covey
44. “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Plato
45. “We must learn to become the love we wish to see in the world.” – Muhamed Ali
46. “Love’s a strange word, that’s why people got confused or misunderstood it.” – Unknown
47. “If you think it’s hard now, wait until you’re older.” – Anonymous
48. “True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well-being of one’s companion.” – Dieter F. Uchtdorf
49. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” – Jesus Christ
50. “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” – Dalai Lama
51. “When we finally learn to love ourselves, our possibilities will open up and we’ll be able to truly love others.” – Unknown
52. “Love means to commit yourself without guarantees.” – Robert Frost
53. “Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi
54. “It takes only a moment to get upset about a broken heart, but a lifetime to get over one.” – Anonymous
55. “You cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” – Steve Jobs
56. “Love is the ultimate truth.” – Mahatma Gandhi
57. “Love cannot be found where it does not exist; love is what we seek when we are no longer looking for it.” – Paulo Coelho
58. “The most powerful force of all is love” – Buddha
59. “True love lives in loving, not in remembering.” – Dale Carnegie
60. “Love means not being afraid of who you are.” – Bessie Head
61. “In order to see the truth of a thing, you must love both sides.” – Oscar Wilde
62. “It’s not about who you want to be, it’s about who you are.” – Unknown

Stoicism Quotes

1. “The only thing we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”-George Santayana
2. “He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, is a fool.”-Socrates
3. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case you fail by default.”-Henry James
4. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
5. “The hardest thing is the decision to act accordingly.”-John F. Kennedy
6. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
8. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
9. “No man ever learned anything from history.”–Arthur Schopenhauer
10. “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.” -Mark Twain
11. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
12. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case you fail by default.”-Henry James
13. “There is nothing more fearful than ignorance in action.”-Thomas Jefferson
14. “Few are the things which we call great, which have not involved the whole of mankind in their pain and their errors.”-Friedrich Nietzsche
15. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
16. “All men who are worth something, think most of themselves; and those who are nothing, think least of themselves. The former are the superior men, who enjoy comfort and happiness; the latter are the empty and foolish.”-Seneca
17. “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” -Plato
18. “People are like plants. They are trained to bring forth their own fruit.”-Seneca
19. “The only thing we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”-George Santayana
20. “He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, is a fool.”-Socrates
21. “I know that I am nothing. That is why I am in such a hurry to be something.” -Plato
22. “A man should learn to think so well that he need not think at all.”-Seneca
23. “Nature hath not given Man over a prey for the desires of all other Creatures, for they are at Liberty as well as himself to please themselves.”-Plato
24. “If after having reflected on the matter you do not find that every human endeavor is wiser than many, consider yourself an exception.”-Seneca
25. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
26. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
27. “No man ever learned anything from history.”–Arthur Schopenhauer
28. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case you fail by default.”-Henry James
29. “The hardest thing is the decision to act accordingly.”-John F. Kennedy
30. “No man ever learned anything from history. ” -Arthur Schopenhauer
31. “A man should learn to think so well that he need not think at all.”-Seneca
32. “Nature hath not given Man over a prey for the desires of all other Creatures, for they are at Liberty as well as himself to please themselves.”-Plato
33. “The only thing we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”-George Santayana
34. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
35. “The only security is to be found in placing one’s happiness in drawbacks.”-George Santayana
36. “No man ever learned anything from history.”–Arthur Schopenhauer
37. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle
38. “The only thing we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.”-George Santayana
39. “If you want to make an impression on the minds of others, first make an impression on your own mind.” -Jonathan Lockwood Huie
40. “I know that I am nothing. That is why I am in such a hurry to be something.” -Plato
41. “A man should learn to think so well that he need not think at all.”-Seneca
42. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke
43. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case you fail by default.”-Henry James
44. “No man ever learned anything from history.”–Arthur Schopenhauer
45. “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.”-Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
46. “I know that I am nothing. That is why I am in such a hurry to be something.” –Plato
47. “The only security is to be found in placing one’s happiness in drawbacks.”-George Santayana
48. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle
49. “The only thing we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.” -George Santayana
50. “When you’ve come to believe that you are absolutely right, it’s very hard to be persuaded that you are wrong.”-George Bernard Shaw
51. “You cannot teach old dogs’ new tricks.”-Mark Twain
52. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing”-Edmund Burke
53. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” -C.S. Lewis
54. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare
55. “If life is a dream, then I would rather be awakened from this dream by the hand of God than to awaken from this dream in my own hand.”-Albert Camus
56. “You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’”-William Shakespeare.

Stoic Quotes on Happiness

1. “It’s not the things themselves that trouble us, but our opinion about things.” – Epictetus
2. “People are disturbed not by things but by the views they take of them.” – Marcus Aurelius
3. “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” – Epictetus
4. “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility lies in being superior to your former self.” – Aristotle
5. “Everything you lose comes around again, in time, but you never get anything back that is not yours.” – Seneca
6. “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius
7. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. “Remember that all is opinion.” – Epictetus
9. “Worry is a misuse of imagination.” – William James
10. “The art of living: It is more like wrestling than dancing.” – Seneca
11. “Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman
12. “It’s generally true that your judgments aren’t worth what you pay for them.” – Seneca
13. “I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung
14. “We must find time alone if we wish to know any of the higher things.” – Epictetus
15. “Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.” – Euripides
16. “You are the master of your own self, not the slave of your previous opinions.” – Epictetus
17. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
18. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare
19. “Life isn’t meant to be easy; it’s meant to be challenging” – Malcom X
20. “If you have a real love for something, then the other things you must do won’t seem like such an imposition.” – Martin Luther King Jr
21. “Don’t compare yourself to others; they’ll only make you feel inferior.” – Suze Orman
22. “If we can be satisfied with what we have, content with where we are, and patient in our pursuit of what is meaningful in life, we will find that nature has her own way of providing us with all that we need. If I truly do need something and don’t have it, then it’s not nature’s fault, but mine.” – Heraclitus
23. “Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” – Kahlil Gibran
24. “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20…is a failure.” – Jawaharlal Nehru
25. “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” – Lewis Caroll
26. “No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.” – Havelock Ellis
27. “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” – Dr. Seuss
28. “The artist’s world is limitless.” – John Burroughs
29. “What you’re thinking of is just a perception of yourself; you are not that. When you think of an object, it becomes a thought.” – Alan Watts
30. “Do not undertake what you cannot perform. When the task seems too great, the only way to succeed is to start it.” – Napoleon Hill
31. “We often hurt the people we love the most because we make them unhappy by wanting to make them happy.” – Carl Rogers
32. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
33. “We are each given a unique opportunity to make our lives extraordinary.” – Stephen Covey
34. “You are the one who decides what you can do, and what you can’t do.” – John Lennon
35. “Don’t pity yourself; life doesn’t owe you anything.” – Seneca

Stoic Quotes on Control

1. “It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it, that matters.”
2. “A single thought can sweep away fear by showing that whatever happens is in unimportant.”
3. “Embrace your humanity and stay true to it. You will then be able not only to live well and wisely but also, if needed, to die well and wisely.”
4. “The greatest training is to understand what you cannot do.”
5. “Not only are we free agents, but we have the power to choose what kind of agent we want to be.”
6. “The greatest good is not that which confers pleasure or success, but that which makes a life complete and self-sufficient.”
7. “It is not events but your reaction to events that matters.”
8. “You will lose everything: your property, your friends, your reputation. But you are going to be alive. You have a soul, a mind. They cannot take away anything more from you than that.”
9. “What is the most important thing? To live in accord with nature. And what is the most important for living in accord with nature? To make sure that your thoughts and actions are just and good.”
10. “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
11. “If you are not reproached, you are not acting rightly. If you do not act rightly, you deserve to be reproached.”
12. “We can’t live a good life without admitting we have a bad one.”
13. “What does it matter? Anything that happens to us is temporary anyway: Necessity has no concern for justice.”
14. “What the animal experiences is nothing but a pattern impressed on his mind by his previous actions and their natural consequences. He has no memory of that pattern, nor can he be delivered from its sway by any struggle of his own. If he does not want to re-enact the past, he will have to re-educate himself.”
15. “Unskilful citizens are slaves and not free men: they are one and the same thing.”
16. “If you wish to make progress in good living, you must first learn how to preserve what you have.”
17. “The future is neither created nor destroyed. It merely emerges.”
18. “To live is to be thrown into reality.”
19. “Lying to oneself, the worst form of self-deception. Stoicism is a philosophy that urges us to be aware of how we deceive ourselves, and then, by choosing corrective action, to try to stop deceiving ourselves in the ways that are most detrimental to leading a fuller life.”
20. “Not only is it in our power to take control of the way we live but it is our duty to do so.”
21. “Keep a tranquil mind and you will never be harmed by anyone.”
22. “The essential difference between a soldier and a civilian is that the soldier knows his duty, while the civilian does not.”
23. “It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it, that matters.”
24. “You must consider yourself a unit and not a part.”
25. “What is your attitude to Fortune? The more you try to impress her, the less likely you are to become impressed with yourself.”
26. “The chief cause of unhappiness is ignorance of our own power.”
27. “Most people don’t know how to stay alive because they lose their grip on reality in the midst of events that they can’t control.”
28. “The duty of the wise man is to restrain his impulses in order to avoid self-destruction.”
29. “No other way of living is known among the citizens of a free country.”
30. “If you cannot master your feelings, you will be controlled by them.”
31. “Those who have been most ill used by Fortune, are those who think they are slaves because she has abused them; whereas those who think they are masters because she has been kinder to them, are really more slaves. She has made them, and they think themselves her offspring. They do not know that she disowns their progeny when they become arrogant and make her the slave of their own conceits.”
32. “Genuine happiness depends on freedom from passion.”
33. “Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.”
34. “There is no reason why you should be deceived by any change except your own character.”
35. “To live in accord with nature is the first philosophy. For an animal, that means living according to its own nature. For us, it means living according to the nature of the universe.”
36. “Death is just like old age and sleep: it can neither be forestalled nor postponed indefinitely.”
37. “Illness is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will unless itself also affected.”
38. “People would live a great deal better if they had only a slight degree of power of resisting their appetites.”
39. “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
40. “Realize how few the years are that make up a man’s life and think how small a part of those years he has lived and suffered.”
41. “Not to know what is good for you is the source of most of your troubles and misfortunes.”
42. “There is no such thing as a complete proof. The material of which proofs are made is limited, and it easily crumbles into nothing in your hands.”
43. “That which you are seeking can be found only by working with it.”
44. “If death were victory, everyone would be stronger than he now is, and the world would be a dread and terrible place.”
45. “Be proud of your body, but not proud of yourself.”
46. “Every man should know how to rule his own spirit.”
47. “How do you know a man is not more intelligent than you? That’s the only way to tell if he is superior or inferior to you.”
48. “I have never seen a truly wise man who was not also good-natured.”
49. “One must either conquer oneself, or allow oneself to be conquered by another human being.”