If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned – to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretention.

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.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are one.

As if you had died and your life had extended only to this present moment, use the surplus that is left to you to live from this time onward according to nature.

The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

It is in your power to live here. But if men do not permit you, then get away out of life, as if you were suffering no harm. The house is smoky, and I quit it. Why do you think that this is any trouble? But so long as nothing of the kind drives me out, I remain, am free, and no man shall hinder me from doing what I choose; and I choose to do what is according to the nature of the rational and social animal.

If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?

People with a strong physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold; people of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emotions.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

How long will you wait before you demand the best of yourself, and trust reason to determine what is best?

‘I will throw you into prison.’ Correction – it is my body you will throw there.

When faced with anything painful or pleasurable, anything bringing glory or disrepute, realize that the crisis is now, that the Olympics have started, and waiting is no longer an option; that the chance for progress, to keep or lose, turns on the events of a single day.

In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being.

No man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

Another person will not hurt you without your cooperation; you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.

Ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to the things that happen to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top— credit for the good deed or a favor in return?

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

The following are non-sequiturs: ‘I am richer, therefore superior to you’; or ‘I am a better speaker, therefore a better person, than you’.

Something good should be a source of pride, correct? ‘Yes.’ And can one really take pride in a momentary pleasure? Please don’t say yes.

All our efforts must be directed towards an end, or we will act in vain. If it is not the right end, we will fail utterly.

So when you hear that even life and the like are indifferent, don’t become apathetic; and by the same token, when you’re advised to care about them, don’t become superficial and conceive a passion for externals.

Whenever externals are more important to you than your own integrity, then be prepared to serve them the remainder of your life.

Being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them

Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes or figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient. First, you must allow the tree to flower, then put forth fruit; then you have to wait until the fruit is ripe. So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?

Never get into family fights over material things; give them up willingly, and your moral standing will increase in proportion.

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.

To be sure, external things of whatever kind require skill in their use, but we must not grow attached to them; whatever they are, they should only serve for us to show how skilled we are in our handling of them.

Do as Socrates did, never replying to the question of where he was from with, ‘I am Athenian,’ or ‘I am from Corinth,’ but always, ‘I am a citizen of the world.’

Just prove to me that you are trustworthy, high-minded and reliable, and that your intentions are benign – prove to me that your jar doesn’t have a hole in it – and you’ll find that I won’t even wait for you to open your heart to me, I’ll be the first to implore you to lend an ear to my own affairs.

When you have done a good act and another has received it, why do you look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

If money is your only standard, then consider that, by your lights, someone who loses their nose does not suffer any harm.

It is not right that anything of any other kind, such as praise from the many, or power, or enjoyment of pleasure, should come into competition with that which is rationally and politically and practically good.

Perhaps the desire of the thing called fame torments you. See how soon everything is forgotten, and look at the chaos of infinite time on each side of the present, and the emptiness of applause, and the fickleness and lack of judgment in those who pretend to give praise, and the narrowness of its domain, and be quiet at last.

Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space – and most of it uninhabited.

Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.

A brief existence is common to all things, and yet you avoid and pursue all things as if they would be eternal.

Death. The end of sense-perception, of being controlled by our emotions, of mental activity, of enslavement to our bodies.

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Death and pain are not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear. Which is why we praise the poet who wrote, ‘Death is not fearful, but dying like a coward is.’

On the occasion of every act ask yourself, “How is this with respect to me? Will I regret it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone”.