The Greatest Quotes of Ancient Greece’s Stoic Philosophers

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

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

“To live a good life; we all have the potential for it, if we learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.”

“Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.”

“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?”

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature’s delight.”

“It is not because things are difficult that we don’t dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.”

“The bravest sight in the world is to see a man struggling against adversity.”

“Throw me to the wolves and I will return leading the pack.”

“Life is never incomplete if it is an honorable one. At whatever point you leave life, if you leave it in the right way, it is whole.”

“Man is affected not by events, but by the view he takes of them.”

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”

“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.”

“He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”

“If you want to improve, be content to be foolish and stupid.”

“The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.”

“Seek not the good in eternal things, seek it in yourselves.”

“It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.”

“No man is free who is not a master of himself.”

“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”

“Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source.”