The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User's Manual

Nothing is heavy if we take it lightly; nothing need provoke anger if one does not add one’s anger to it.

Two things we must therefore root out: fear of distress in the future and the memory of distress in the past. The one concerns me no longer. The other concerns me not yet.

Wouldn’t anyone admit how much better it is, instead of working hard to get possession of someone else’s wife, to work hard to restrain your desires; instead of being distressed about money, to train yourself to want little; instead of working to become famous, to work not to thirst for fame; instead of finding a way to hurt someone you envy, to fi

Don’t imagine having things that you don’t have. Rather, pick the best of the things that you do have and think of how much you would want them if you didn’t have them.

You are going to die at any minute, and yet you still are not simple and straightforward, nor do you have peace of mind, nor are you free from suspicion that you will be hurt by external things, nor are you kind to everyone, nor do you see that being wise consists solely in being just.

Becoming alternately merchants and merchandise by turns, we ask not what a thing truly is, but what it costs.

No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.

The perfection of moral character consists in this: to spend each day as if it were the last, to be neither agitated nor numb, and not to pretend.

Why are you angry with your slave, with your master, with your patron, with your client? Wait a little. Behold, death comes, which will make you equals. Seneca, On Anger 3.43.1