It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance.
We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us.
Lighter is the wound foreseen.
Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.
For what else is tragedy than the portrayal in tragic verse of the sufferings of men who have attached high value to external things?
When a man’s eyes are sore his friends do not let him finger them, however much he wishes to, nor do they themselves touch the inflammation: But a man sunk in grief suffers every chance comer to stir and augment his affliction like a running sore; and by reason of the fingering and consequent irritation it hardens into a serious and intractable evil.
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.
I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?
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.
Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day.
Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives to them.
No one is ever unhappy because of someone else.
People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.
The condition and characteristic of an uninstructed person is this: he never expects from himself profit (advantage) nor harm, but from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is this: he expects all advantage and all harm from himself.
