The Art of Living: The Classical Mannual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness

As time goes by and you build on the habit of matching the appropriate inner resource to each incident, you will not tend to get carried away by life’s appearances. You will stop feeling overwhelmed so much of the time.

Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.

Read them. Learn from them. Apply their wisdom. Do you have specialized knowledge? Put it to its full and good use. Do you have tools? Get them out and build or repair things with them. Do you have a good idea? Follow up and follow through on it. Make the most of what you’ve got, what is actually yours.

You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don’t be concerned with who is watching you.

Think about it: What is really your own? The use you make of the ideas, resources, and opportunities that come your way. Do you have books?

Things simply are what they are. Other people think what they will think; it is of no concern to us. No Shame. No Blame.

Small-minded people habitually reproach others for their own misfortunes. Average people reproach themselves. Those who are dedicated to a life of wisdom understand that the impulse to blame something or someone is foolishness, that there is nothing to be gained in blaming, whether it be others or oneself. One of the signs of the dawning of moral p

Things and people are not what we wish them to be nor what they seem to be. They are what they are.

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.