Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself.
Why should any of these things that happen externally distract thee? Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing: cease roving to and fro.
Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.
Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed.
On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.
Flinch not, neither give up nor despair, if the achieving of every act in accordance with right principle is not always continuous with thee.
Be cheerful, also, and seek not external help, nor the peace which others give. A man must stand straight, and not be kept straight by others.
People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time-even when hard at work.
Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.
Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.
The earth loveth the shower," and "the holy æther knoweth what love is." The Universe, too, loves to create whatsoever is destined to be made.
Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, o Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee.
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead.
Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee, what can these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?
Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.
He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit.
Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.
Put it out of the power of truth to give you an ill character. If anybody reports you not to be an honest man let your practice give him the lie.
Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more.
Put from you the belief that 'I have been wronged', and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.
Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self respect, to hate any person, to curse, to act the hypocrite.
It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.
Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.
Time is a kind of river, an irresistible flood sweeping up men and events and carrying them headlong, one after the other, to the great sea of being.
We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.
Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.
I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?
From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to reason.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.
When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic-what defines a human being-is to work with others.
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.
Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship of reason.
This is the mark of a perfect character - to pass through each day as though it were the last, without agitation, without torpor, and without pretense.
Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop doing such good.
An angry look on the face is wholly against nature. If it be assumed frequently, beauty begins to perish, and in the end is quenched beyond rekindling.
It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.
Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy; none of its parts are unconnected. They are composed harmoniously, and together - they compose the world.
Death - a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.
The whole contains nothing that is not for its advantage. By remembering that I am part of such a whole, I shall be content with everything that happens.
Vex not thy spirit at the course of things; they heed not thy vexation. How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment at anything that may happen in life.
It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.
Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love ... then make that day count!
I will march on in the path of nature till my legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and expire into that air which has given me my daily breath.
Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, 'This is a misfortune' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'
Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, and unassuming; the friend of justice and godliness; kindly, affectionate, and resolute in your devotion to duty.
Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.
One universe made up all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of being, and one law, the reason shared by all thinking creatures, and one truth.
Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.