"Yes, you can--if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable. (Hays translation)"

"You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life? If you can manage this, that's all even the gods can ask of you. (Hays translation)"

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

"This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole..."

"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. (Hays translation)"

"Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil."

"The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing."

"Remember that all is opinion."

"No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart."

"Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth."

"For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing."

"Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion. (Hays translation)"

"As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion."

"What means all this?"

"Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal."

"...undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. (Hays translation)"

"The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself."

"For we carry our fate with us — and it carries us. (Hays translation)"

"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."

"A man should be upright, not kept upright."

"But that which is useful is the better."

"Choose what's best.—Best is what benefits me. (Hays translation)"

"Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect."

"Respect the faculty that forms thy judgments."

"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. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells."

"Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. (Hays translation)"

"The propositions which are true and evident must of necessity be employed even by those who contradict them"

"Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task."

"Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions, and determine to pay the price for a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast... and one day you will build something that endures, something worthy of your potential."

"You become what you give your attention to."

"Show me someone who is ill and yet happy, in danger and yet happy, dying and yet happy, exiled and yet happy. Show me such a person; by the gods, how greatly I long to see a Stoic!"

"Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others."

"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."

"Be not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say, "Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you.""

"In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside."

"Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan."

"Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle."

"No man is free who is not master of himself."

"Those of our pleasures which come most rarely give the greatest delight."

"Whatever you would make habitual, practice it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practice it, but accustom yourself to something else."

"We ought neither to fasten our ship to one small anchor nor our life to a single hope."

"You are a little soul carrying a corpse around, as Epictetus used to say."

"If you would be a good reader, read; if a writer, write."

"If the room is smoky, if only moderately, I will stay; if there is too much smoke I will go. Remember this, keep a firm hold on it, the door is always open."

"You have a mind? —Yes. Well, why not use it? (Hays translation)"

"Upon all occasions we ought to have these maxims ready at hand:"

"Whatever happens at all happens as it should; you will find this true, if you watch narrowly."

"That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within."

"The first and most necessary topic in philosophy is that of the use of moral theorems, such as, "We ought not to lie;" the second is that of demonstrations, such as, "What is the origin of our obligation not to lie;" the third gives strength and articulation to the other two, such as, "What is the origin of this is a demonstration." For what is demonstration? What is consequence? What contradiction? What truth? What falsehood? The third topic, then, is necessary on the account of the second, and the second on the account of the first. But the most necessary, and that whereon we ought to rest, is the first. But we act just on the contrary. For we spend all our time on the third topic, and employ all our diligence about that, and entirely neglect the first. (51)."

"Every habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running."