In the words of Epictetus:
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.
Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.
Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.
Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.
You can be happy if you know this secret: Some things are within your power to control and some things are not.
Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
To live a life of virtue, you have to become consistent, even when it isn't convenient, comfortable, or easy.
First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do.
We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
It's so simple really: If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you start something, finish it.
What matters most is what sort of person you are becoming. Wise individuals care only about whom they are today and who they can be tomorrow.
To make anything a habit, do it; to not make it a habit, do not do it; to unmake a habit, do something else in place of it.
Try not to react merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view. Compose yourself.
Have the wisdom to know what cannot be changed, and the strength to change what can.
We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout.
No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.
Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself.
Happiness and personal fulfillment are the natural consequences of doing the right thing.
Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.
Contentment, as it is a short road and pleasant, has great delight and little trouble.
If you can make music with someone you don't need words. If you wish to be a writer, write.
Don't be concerned who is watching you. The triumphs and merits of others belong to them - as do yours to you. Make the most of what you've got.
By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free.
At every occasion in your life, do not forget to commune with yourself and ask of yourself how you can profit by it.
Living a good life leads to enduring happiness. Goodness in and of itself is the practice and the reward.
The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are.
Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?
What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.
Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things, and thence proceed to greater.
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.
Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions, as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running.
When your thoughts, words, and deeds form a seamless fabric, you streamline your efforts and thus eliminate worry and dread.
The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.
If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher.
From now on practice saying to everything that appears unpleasant: You are merely an appearance and not what you appear to be.
We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those parts. Our duty is confined to playing them well.
Consider first the nature of the business in hand; then examine thy own nature, whether thou hast strength to undertake it.
It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.
If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.
As it is pleasant to see the sea from the land, so it is pleasant for him who has escaped from troubles to think of them.
You can be invincible, if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer.
Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.
It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.
Let thy speech of God be renewed day by day, aye, rather than thy meat and drink.
You ought to choose both physician and friend, not the most agreeable, but the most useful.
The universe is but one great city, full of beloved ones, divine and human, by nature endeared to each other.
It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.
If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.
Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.
To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.
It is not events that disturb the minds of men, but the view they take of them.
The Beginning of Philosophy is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.
Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.
You are a principal work, a fragment of Goddess herself, you have in yourself a part of her. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth?
What disturbs people's minds are not events but their judgments on events.
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