Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

At the times when you are delighted with a thing, place before yourself the contrary appearances. What harm is it while you are kissing your child to say with a lisping voice, “To-morrow you will die” ; and to a friend also, “To-morrow you will go away or I shall, and never shall we see one another again” ?

When we are able to regard what we love in... See more

When you are delighted with anything, be delighted as with a thing which is not one of those which cannot be taken away, but as something of such a kind, as an earthen pot is, or a glass cup, that, when it has been broken, you may remember what it was and may not be troubled... What you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the ... See more

Abraham Lincoln would later term “a sad sweet feeling in your heart.”