Letters from a Stoic

If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

If you live in harmony with nature you will never be poor; if you live according what others think, you will never be rich.

Regard [a friend] as loyal, and you will make him loyal.

It is not the man who has too little that is poor, but the one who hankers after more.

But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.

Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.

Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly, and nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do.

You should … live in such a way that there is nothing which you could not as easily tell your enemy as keep to yourself.

Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.

To win true freeedom you must be a slave to philosophy.

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with

Philosophy calls for simple living, not for doing penance, and the simple way of life need not be a crude one.

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them

What really ruins our character is the fact that none of us looks back over his life.

I have learned to be a friend to myself Great improvement this indeed Such a one can never be said to be alone for know that he who is a friend to himself is a friend to all mankind

To be everywhere is to be nowhere.

A woman is not beautiful when her ankle or arm wins compliments, but when her total appearance diverts admiration from the individual parts of her body.

Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.

What fortune has made yours is not your own.

Because thou writest me often, I thank thee ... Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.

Wild animals run from the dangers they actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come. A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present.

People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax.

Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life.

The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is.

For the only safe harbour in this life's tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us.

What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed, Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands.

There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Hold fast, then, to this sound and wholesome rule of life - that you indulge the body only so far as is needful for good health. The body should be treated more rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind.