Only the novice is inflated and grasping and fearful; but we are all novices. Life is regrettably short because it does not allow us enough trials to become as wise as we would wish. Stoic philosophy is a compensation – a substitute for time, or simulation of it. Stoicism means to offer the wisdom while skipping the repetition; it tries to get by

You will learn the truth by experience: the things that people value highly and try hardest to get do them no good once they have them. Those who don’t have them imagine that, once they do, everything good will be theirs; then they do get them, and the heat of their desires is the same, their agitation is the same, their disgust with what they

If distress is caused by our thoughts about things rather than by the things themselves, we should try dropping those thoughts and using new ones.

Anyone who crows about being a Stoic isn’t; progress in Stoicism may be measured in part by one’s awareness of failure at it.

We always feel as though we react to things in the world; in fact we react to things in ourselves. And sometimes changing ourselves will be more effective and sensible than trying to change the world.

our pleasures, griefs, desires and fears all involve three stages rather than two: not just an event and a reaction, but an event, then a judgment or opinion about it, and then a reaction (to the judgment or opinion). Our task is to notice the middle step, to understand its frequent irrationality, and to control it through the patient use of

If any external thing causes you distress, it is not the thing itself that troubles you, but your own judgment about it. And this you have the power to eliminate now. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47

Seneca, along with others we will see, gave early recognition to many tendencies of the mind that are relearned, often the hard way, by every generation and most individuals: that we most desire what we do not or cannot have; that the pursuit of a thing is more pleasing than the possession of it; that possession of a good and familiarity with it

Experience is humbling. Instead you might have other types of joy – the calm kind that comes from appreciation and understanding.