"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. (1)."

"Be bold to look towards God and say, "Use me henceforward for whatever you want; I am of one mind with you; I am yours; I refuse nothing that seems good to you; lead me where you will; wrap me in what clothes you will.""

"Why, then, do we wonder any longer that, although in material things we are thoroughly experienced, nevertheless in our actions we are dejected, unseemly, worthless, cowardly, unwilling to stand the strain, utter failures one and all?"

"When I see someone in anxiety, I say to myself, What can it be that this fellow wants? For if he did not want something that was outside of his control, how could he still remain in anxiety?"

"Look now, this is the starting point of philosophy: the recognition that different people have conflicting opinions, the rejection of mere opinion so that it comes to be viewed with mistrust, an investigation of opinion to determine whether it is rightly held, and the discovery of a standard of judgement, comparable to the balance that we have devised for the determining of weights, or the carpenter's rule for determining whether things are straight or crooked."

"Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? "What sinews are those?" — A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised, careful resolutions; unerring decisions."

"Although life is a matter of indifference, the use which you make of it is not a matter of indifference."

"Materials are indifferent, but the use which we make of them is not a matter of indifference."

"Show that you know this only—how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid."

"For on these matters we should not trust the multitude who say that none ought to be educated but the free, but rather to philosophers, who say that the educated alone are free."

"For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction. For where a child has knowledge, he is no worse than we are."

"For it is not death or pain that is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death."

"For what is lacking now is not quibbles; nay, the books of the Stoics are full of quibbles"

"The essence of the good is a certain kind of moral purpose, and that of the evil is a certain kind of moral purpose."

"For human beings, the measure of every action is the impression of the senses."

"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."

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

"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."

"If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?"

"It is difficulties that show what men are."

"If it is my interest to have a farm, it is my interest to take it away from my neighbour; if it is my interest to have a cloak, it is my interest also to steal it from a bath. This is the source of wars, seditions, tyrannies, plots."

"Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these about whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?"

"It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?"

"Practice yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater."

"If what the philosophers say be true,—that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain,—so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage."

"Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder."

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

"Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind."

"No thing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen."

"When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?"

"O slavish man! will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his Father, as being a son from the same stock, and of the same high descent? But if you chance to be placed in some superior station, will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?"

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

"In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles."

"Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly within our own control."

""But to be hanged—is that not unendurable?" Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself."

"To the rational being only the irrational is unendurable, but the rational is endurable."

"For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire."

"For what is it that everyone is seeking? To live securely, to be happy, to do everything as they wish to do, not to be hindered, not to be subject to compulsion."

"But tell me this: did you never love any person... were you never commanded by the person beloved to do something which you did not wish to do? Have you never flattered your little slave? Have you never kissed her feet? And yet if any man compelled you to kiss Caesar's feet, you would think it an insult and excessive tyranny. What else then is slavery?"

"Let not that which in the case of another is contrary to nature become an evil for you; for you are born not to be humiliated along with others, nor to share in their misfortunes, but to share in their good fortune. If, however, someone is unfortunate, remember that his misfortune concerns himself. For God made all mankind to be happy, to be serene."

"For this too is a very pleasant strand woven into the Cynic's pattern of life; he must needs be flogged like an ass, and while he is being flogged he must love the men who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of them all."

"Don't you know that a good and excellent person does nothing for the sake of appearances, but only for the sake of having acted right?"

"Τίς εἶναι θέλεις, σαυτῷ πρῶτον εἰπέ: εἶθ' οὕτως ποίει ἃ ποιεῖς."

"For he who is unmusical is a child in music; he who is without letters is a child in learning; he who is untaught, is a child in life."

"Do you suppose that you can do the things you do now, and yet be a philosopher? Do you suppose that you can eat in the same fashion, drink in the same fashion, give way to anger and to irritation, just as you do now?"

"In each separate thing that you do consider the matters which come first, and those which follow after, and only then approach the thing itself."

"Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them."

"What should a philosopher say, then, in the face of each of the hardships of life? "It was for this that I've been training myself, it was for this that I was practising.""

"Why, what is weeping and sighing? A judgement. What is misfortune? A judgement. What are strife, disagreement, fault-finding, accusing, impiety, foolishness? They are all judgements."