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

It turns out Epictetus (pronounced “Eh-pick-tee-tis”)

When you free yourself of the distractions of shallow or illusory pleasures and devote yourself instead to your rightful duties, you can relax. When you know you’ve done the best you can under the circumstances, you can have a light heart. Your mind doesn’t have to moonlight, making excuses, thinking up alibis, defending your honor, feeling guilty

Stoicism is superb at exposing the social fallacies and personal delusions that hinder our ability to feel connected to others, that undermine meaningfulness, or that reward the trivial at the expense of the vital and true. Stoicism teaches us to distinguish between true satisfaction and mere gratification, between self-reliant joy and nervous

First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.

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

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

Unless we fully give ourselves over to our endeavors, we are hollow, superficial people and we never develop our natural gifts. We’ve all known people who, like monkeys, mimic whatever seems novel and flashy at the moment. But then their enthusiasm and efforts wane; they drop their projects as soon as they become too familiar or demanding.

If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.