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

Sex is not a game. It gives rise to very real enduring emotional and practical consequences. To ignore this is to debase yourself, and to disregard the significance of human relationships.

Stop aspiring to be anyone other than your own best self: for that does fall within your control.

Don’t give too much weight to erudition alone. Look to the example of people whose actions are consistent with their professed principles.

It is not so much what you are doing as how you are doing it. When we properly understand and live by this principle, while difficulties will arise—for they are part of the divine order too—inner peace will still be possible.

Desire and aversion, though powerful, are but habits. And we can train ourselves to have better habits. Restrain the habit of being repelled by all those things that aren’t within your control, and focus instead on combating things within your power that are not good for you.

By the steady but patient commitment to removing unsound beliefs from our souls, we become increasingly adept at seeing through our flimsy fears, our bewilderment in love, and our lack of self control. We stop trying to look good to others. One day, we contentedly realize we’ve stopped playing to the crowd.

Put your principles into practice—now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren’t a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you will be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of

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

Epictetus’s Stoicism will have quite a bit to say to you, because Stoicism is a philosophy of real life for real people living real lives. It’s a philosophy for people who make mistakes and harbor regrets. It’s also a philosophy for grown-ups. Stoicism asks you to quit mewling and making excuses and to face this problem you have, which is that your