Atharva31/Quotes_Collection · Datasets at Hugging Face

Unnamed: 0 int64 0 7.68k	quote stringlengths 1 3.91k	tags stringclasses 3 values
7,045	“If ever you want to find out whether anything has been achieved, observe whether your intentions are the same today as they were yesterday. A change of intention shows that the mind is at sea, drifting here and there as carried by the wind.”	stoicism
7,462	“You can be hurt, not by what others think of you, but by what you think of what they think or you think they think of you.”	stoicism
7,011	“Show me one who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him me. By the gods I would fain see a Stoic. Nay you cannot show me a finished Stoic; then show me one in the moulding, one who has set his feet on the path”	stoicism
6,985	“Every life without exception is a short one.”	stoicism
7,020	“To act wise isn’t to act wisely.”	stoicism
7,580	“Soon, you will have forgotten everything. Soon, everybody will have forgotten you.”	stoicism
6,895	“Just as the sun is forever pursued by shadows, so too is our purpose chased by an unending flurry of distractions. They are the specters of our existence, conjured by the ceaseless clatter of the world, whispering tales of urgency and importance that often bear no relevance to our true path.”	stoicism
6,986	“The best way to have people laugh with you and not at you, is to get ahead of them and laugh at yourself first.”	stoicism
7,075	“We are often blind to the fact that our situation is not as bad as we think, until it gets worse.”	stoicism
7,566	“Life is a game we are all bound to lose.”	stoicism
6,954	“We cannot believe in the fundamental goodness of the world until and unless we ourself become that goodness.”	stoicism
6,808	“Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; if it passes you by don't try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yet, don't let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. Go further and decline these goods even when they are on offer and you will have a share in the gods' power as well as their company. That is how Diogenes, Heraclitus and philosophers like them came to be called, and considered, divine.”	stoicism
6,992	“I am acting on behalf of later generations. I am writing down a few things that may be of use to them.”	stoicism
6,953	“Those who courageously choose to confront extreme hardships perceive their experience differently than others. They have the ability to envision something beyond the difficulties they encounter. Perhaps a glimmer of hope? Or perhaps another form of adversity? The truth is that the only way to know what lies ahead is by continuing onward.”	stoicism
7,264	“Najlepší spôsob obrany je nepodobať sa tým, čo nám ubližujú.”	stoicism
7,196	“Whoever then has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them; but how could one who cannot distinguish good things from evil and things indifferent from both have power to love?”	stoicism
6,947	“When we first wake up our minds are clear, which makes this the opportune time to direct our focus inwards, to organize our thoughts and to set our daily intentions through a few moments of meditation. Our duties and obligations have not yet begun to crowd our schedule, and the clarity of the dawn creates an open, undistracted mental space.”	stoicism
7,197	“A child is one of the most common results of the lack or loss of self-control.”	stoicism
7,063	“Difficulty is the foundation of growth, which is the foundation of greatness.”	stoicism
7,621	“It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.”	stoicism
6,920	“You can also commit injustice by doing nothing.”	stoicism
7,153	“No parent should outlive their children. To lose eight of them? So young? It staggers the mind. “Unfair” does not even come close. It’s grotesque. How easily this could shatter a person, how easily and understandably it might cause them to toss away everything they ever believed, to hate a world that could be so cruel. Yet somehow we have Marcus Aurelius”	stoicism
7,407	“[W]e can have the things we need for our ordinary purposes if we will only be content with what the earth has made available on its surface.”	stoicism
7,582	“The willing are led by fate, the reluctant are dragged.”	stoicism
7,077	“We cannot really save time. We can merely avoid wasting it.”	stoicism
7,105	“Ideally, a Stoic will be oblivious to the services he does for others, as oblivious as a grapevine is when it yields a cluster of grapes to a vintner. He will not pause to boast about the service he has performed but will move on to perform his next service, the way the grape vine moves on to bear more grapes.”	stoicism
7,515	“Rejection of desire is liberating. Renunciation is a form of power.”	stoicism
7,661	“[Philosophers] have come to envy the philologist and the mathematician, and they have taken over all the inessential elements in those studies—with the result that they know more about devoting care and attention to their speech than about devoting such attention to their lives.”	stoicism
7,144	“He never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively, and with no loose ends.”	stoicism
6,777	“Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is always the chance (about eight hundred and fifty to one) that another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping, and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be.”	stoicism
7,110	“What is divine deserves our respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. And our pity too, sometimes, for its inability to tell good from bad- as terrible a blindness as the kind that can't tell white from black.”	stoicism
6,898	“The Stoic approach is the lighthouse that guides us amidst the tempest, leading us to the land of dreams crafted in the forge of the unyielding present.”	stoicism
7,545	“It is impossible to trip and fall while walking slowly.”	stoicism
7,438	“Independence and unvarying reliability, and to pay attention to nothing, no matter how fleetingly, except the logos. And to be the same in all circumstances—intense pain, the loss of a child, chronic illness. And to see clearly, from his example, that a man can show both strength and flexibility. His patience in teaching. And to have seen someone who clearly viewed his expertise and ability as a teacher as the humblest of virtues. And to have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful. On Apolonius”	stoicism
7,121	“If being better is the surest way of feeling better, it must be better than feeling better.”	stoicism
7,127	“That we can change the shadow of an object without changing the object (by changing the position of the source of light) reminds us that we can change how we feel about a situation or person by changing only how we look at it or them.”	stoicism
7,286	“Destroying your mirrors leaves your facial blemishes intact.”	stoicism
7,264	“Najlepší spôsob obrany je nepodobať sa tým, čo nám ubližujú.”	stoicism
6,855	“I will keep a watch on myself straightway and—the most useful step—review my day. The fact that we do not look back over our lives makes us worse. We ponder—though rarely—what we are to do, but we do not ponder at all what we have done—and yet planning for the future depends on the past.”	stoicism
6,944	“Externals are nothing to a stoic. The falsehoods and artificial limitations of human society are nothing to proponents of the theater principle”	stoicism
7,571	“At any given moment, it is a beautiful day in many parts of the world.”	stoicism
6,962	“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his mind. So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”	stoicism
7,080	“Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart—”	stoicism
6,888	“Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love.”	stoicism
6,987	“So - to the best of your ability - demonstrate your own guilt, conduct inquiries of your own into all the evidence against yourself. Play the part first of prosecutor, then of judge, and finally of pleader in mitigation. Be harsh with yourself at times.”	stoicism
7,196	“Whoever then has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them; but how could one who cannot distinguish good things from evil and things indifferent from both have power to love?”	stoicism
7,183	“We cannot be too young to die.”	stoicism
6,883	“Stand up straight, not straightened. The Gods give us everything, but not all at once.”	stoicism
6,914	“Birds weren’t given wings just to walk everywhere . . . and you weren’t born with resilience and a beautiful mind just to have an easy life.”	stoicism
7,307	“We get a taste of death, not when we’re asleep, but when we awake.”	stoicism
7,417	“Many are the things that have caused terror during the night and been turned into matters of laughter with the coming of daylight.”	stoicism
7,072	“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will — then your life will flow well.”	stoicism
7,513	“Those who died quietly asleep are not less dead than those who were killed awake by bombs.”	stoicism
7,650	“And here lies the essential difference between Stoicism and the modern-day 'cult of optimism.' For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind was tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word, 'happiness.' And tranquility was to be achieved not by strenuously chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one's circumstances.”	stoicism
7,357	“The thing whose acquisition ‘made’ you happy need not be stolen, lost, or broken for ‘it’ to make you unhappy.”	stoicism
7,609	“The Sage desires only one thing, virtue, and he is cautious about only one thing, vice. He is the same in every circumstance because what is most important lies within him, and not with external events, which are constantly changing.”	stoicism
7,114	“Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does- or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it?”	stoicism
7,583	“Sometimes, even to live is an act of courage.”	stoicism
7,570	“It is our natural and moral duty as consumers of other living things to someday die.”	stoicism
6,770	“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.”	stoicism
6,916	“I am not like the Gods! That was a painful thrust; I'm like the worm that burrows in the dust, Who, as he makes of dust his meager meal, Is crushed and buried by a wanderers heel Is it not dust that stares from every rack And narrows down this vaulting den? This moth's world full of bric-a-brac In which I live as in a pen? Here I should find for what I care? Should I read in a thousand books, maybe, That men have always suffered everywhere, Though now and then some man lived happily?- Why, hollow skull, do you grin like a faun? Save that your brain, like mine, once in dismay Searched for light day, but foundered in the heavy dawn”	stoicism
7,056	“Even a poisonous snake is safe to handle in cold weather, when it is sluggish. Its venom is still there, but inactive. In the same way, there are many people whose cruelty, ambition, or self-indulgence fails to match the most outrageous cases only by the grace of fortune.”	stoicism
7,423	“Life is divided into three periods, past, present and future. Of these, the present is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. For this last is the one over which Fortune has lost her power, which cannot be brought back to anyone’s control. But this is what preoccupied people lose: for they have no time to look back at their past, and even if they did, it is not pleasant to recall activities they are ashamed of.”	stoicism
6,822	“Thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of his own suit, a high resolve constrained him not to injure that of another. This is a lover's most stoical virtue, as the lack of it is a lover's most venial sin.”	stoicism
7,073	“Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.”	stoicism
6,838	“It is quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it.”	stoicism
7,130	“The best kind of pleasure comes from the indifference to pain … and pleasure.”	stoicism
7,371	“People often give us a piece of their mind with the intention to take away our peace of mind.”	stoicism
6,989	“Don’t take things too personally. Critique, failures, unwarranted advice - take it to mind, not to heart. What you hear out of the mouths of others are opinions and perspectives. It’s often worth listening to opinions and perspectives, but it’s not a requisite that you take them on board.”	stoicism
7,473	“She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her situation: of something not round nor before her.”	stoicism
7,344	“Let Nature make whatever use she pleases of matter, which is her own: lets us be cheerful and brave in the face of all, and consider that nothing of our own perishes. What is the duty of a good man? To offer himself to fate.”	stoicism
7,354	“Human beings are makers, usually of a mountain out of a molehill.”	stoicism
6,930	“He is a slave.'' But shall that stand in his way? Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear.”	stoicism
7,450	“We always have a choice as to, not what we hear, but what we listen to.”	stoicism
6,858	“Lives such as yours—how true it is!—though they should exceed a thousand years, will contract into the smallest span: but those vices of yours will swallow up any amount of time. This length of time you have, that reason prolongs, however swift nature makes its sojourn, is bound to pass quickly through your fingers; for you do not grasp it, or seek to hold on to it, or try to delay the passing of the swiftest thing of all, but allow it to depart, as if it were something surplus to requirement and easily replaced.”	stoicism
7,457	“A fool is a man who disregards legacy.”	stoicism
7,550	“The first principle of practical Stoicism is this: we don’t react to events; we react to our judgments about them, and the judgments are up to us.”	stoicism
7,354	“Human beings are makers, usually of a mountain out of a molehill.”	stoicism
7,526	“The happiest people are not those who have the most, but those who are the most grateful for what they have.”	stoicism
7,358	“And, just as it is harder to have good qualities when one is rich than when one is poor, it is harder to be a Stoic when one is wealthy, powerful, and respected than when one is destitute, miserable, and lonely.”	stoicism
6,928	“me dulcis saturet quies; obscuro positus loco leni perfruar otio, nullis nota Quiritibus aetas per tacitum fluat. sic cum transierint mei nullo cum strepitu dies. plebeius moriar senex. illi mors gravis incubat qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.”	stoicism
7,258	“I sacrificed much to be where I am today, yet I will sacrifice much more to get to where I need to be someday.”	stoicism
7,093	“Our rationality is a visitor.”	stoicism
7,379	“Equanimity is often mistaken for depression.”	stoicism
7,150	“Funerals greatly exaggerate the pleasantness of being alive, while they prevent us from thinking about the advantages of being dead.”	stoicism
6,871	“Ought not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed? By no means say so, but speak rather this way: This man who has been mistaken and deceived about the most important things, and blinded, not in the faculty of vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should we destroy him? If you speak thus you will see how inhuman this is which you say, and that it is just as if you would say, Ought we not destroy this blind and deaf man?”	stoicism
7,263	“Často sa dopúšťa bezprávia aj ten, kto nič nerobí, nielen ten, kto niečo robí.”	stoicism
7,413	“Consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of evil desires, and how much exertion others expend for the sake of making profit, and how much suffering those who are pursuing fame endure, and bear in mind that all of these people submit to all kinds of toil and hardship voluntarily. Is it then not monstrous that they for no honorable reward endure such things, while we for the sake of the ideal good - that is not only the avoidance of evil such as wrecks our lives, but also the acquisition of virtue, which we may call the provider of all goods -- are not ready to bear every hardship? And yet would not anyone admit how much better it is, in place of exerting oneself to win someone else's wife, to exert oneself the discipline of one's desires; in place of enduring hardships for the sake of money, the train oneself to want little; instead of giving oneself trouble about getting notoriety; instead of trying to find a way to injure an envied person, to enquire how not to envy anyone; and instead of slaving, as sycophants do, to win false friends, to undergo suffering in order to possess true friends? Since toil and hardship are a necessity for all, both for those who seek better and worse, it is preposterous that those pursuing the better are not much more eager in their efforts than those for whom there is small hope of reward for all their pains. ... It remains for me to say that who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since all good is gained by toil.”	stoicism
7,383	“Но Эпиктет призывал мужественно смотреть в лицо реальности, а реальность такова, что все люди смертны и никто из них не принадлежит нам и не останется с нами навечно. [...] Признав эту реальность, мы понимаем, что должны наслаждаться любовью наших близких и общением с ними, когда это возможно, а не принимать их как должное: ведь неминуемо настанет день, когда «установленное время года» пройдет.”	stoicism
6,788	“Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.”	stoicism
7,223	“To live is to owe life to die.”	stoicism
7,251	“Soon you will be dead and none of it will matter”	stoicism
7,363	“Sleep is often a form of escapism.”	stoicism
7,166	“You cannot really not care about what others think about you, yet care about whether or not they know that you do not care about what they think about you.”	stoicism
7,048	“Flattery looks very much like friendship, indeed not only resembles it but actually wins out against it. A person drinks it in with eager ears and takes it deeply to heart, delighted by the very qualities that make it dangerous.”	stoicism
7,620	“Man is mostly a collection of emotions, most of which he would do better not to be feeling.”	stoicism
7,134	“Gluttony is nothing other than lack of self-control with respect to food, and human beings prefer food that is pleasant to food that is nutritious.”	stoicism
7,100	“When you start to lose your temper, remember: There's nothing manly about rage. It's courtesy and kindness that define a human being- and a man. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners.”	stoicism
7,410	“[A] man is wealthy if he has attuned himself to his restricted means and has made himself rich on little.”	stoicism
7,113	“It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it.”	stoicism

7,045

“If ever you want to find out whether anything has been achieved, observe whether your intentions are the same today as they were yesterday. A change of intention shows that the mind is at sea, drifting here and there as carried by the wind.”

stoicism

7,462

“You can be hurt, not by what others think of you, but by what you think of what they think or you think they think of you.”

stoicism

7,011

“Show me one who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him me. By the gods I would fain see a Stoic. Nay you cannot show me a finished Stoic; then show me one in the moulding, one who has set his feet on the path”

stoicism

6,985

“Every life without exception is a short one.”

stoicism

7,020

“To act wise isn’t to act wisely.”

stoicism

7,580

“Soon, you will have forgotten everything. Soon, everybody will have forgotten you.”

stoicism

6,895

“Just as the sun is forever pursued by shadows, so too is our purpose chased by an unending flurry of distractions. They are the specters of our existence, conjured by the ceaseless clatter of the world, whispering tales of urgency and importance that often bear no relevance to our true path.”

stoicism

6,986

“The best way to have people laugh with you and not at you, is to get ahead of them and laugh at yourself first.”

stoicism

7,075

“We are often blind to the fact that our situation is not as bad as we think, until it gets worse.”

stoicism

7,566

“Life is a game we are all bound to lose.”

stoicism

6,954

“We cannot believe in the fundamental goodness of the world until and unless we ourself become that goodness.”

stoicism

6,808

“Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; if it passes you by don't try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yet, don't let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. Go further and decline these goods even when they are on offer and you will have a share in the gods' power as well as their company. That is how Diogenes, Heraclitus and philosophers like them came to be called, and considered, divine.”

stoicism

6,992

“I am acting on behalf of later generations. I am writing down a few things that may be of use to them.”

stoicism

6,953

“Those who courageously choose to confront extreme hardships perceive their experience differently than others. They have the ability to envision something beyond the difficulties they encounter. Perhaps a glimmer of hope? Or perhaps another form of adversity? The truth is that the only way to know what lies ahead is by continuing onward.”

stoicism

7,264

“Najlepší spôsob obrany je nepodobať sa tým, čo nám ubližujú.”

stoicism

7,196

“Whoever then has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them; but how could one who cannot distinguish good things from evil and things indifferent from both have power to love?”

stoicism

6,947

“When we first wake up our minds are clear, which makes this the opportune time to direct our focus inwards, to organize our thoughts and to set our daily intentions through a few moments of meditation. Our duties and obligations have not yet begun to crowd our schedule, and the clarity of the dawn creates an open, undistracted mental space.”

stoicism

7,197

“A child is one of the most common results of the lack or loss of self-control.”

stoicism

7,063

“Difficulty is the foundation of growth, which is the foundation of greatness.”

stoicism

7,621

“It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.”

stoicism

6,920

“You can also commit injustice by doing nothing.”

stoicism

7,153

“No parent should outlive their children. To lose eight of them? So young? It staggers the mind. “Unfair” does not even come close. It’s grotesque. How easily this could shatter a person, how easily and understandably it might cause them to toss away everything they ever believed, to hate a world that could be so cruel. Yet somehow we have Marcus Aurelius”

stoicism

7,407

“[W]e can have the things we need for our ordinary purposes if we will only be content with what the earth has made available on its surface.”

stoicism

7,582

“The willing are led by fate, the reluctant are dragged.”

stoicism

7,077

“We cannot really save time. We can merely avoid wasting it.”

stoicism

7,105

“Ideally, a Stoic will be oblivious to the services he does for others, as oblivious as a grapevine is when it yields a cluster of grapes to a vintner. He will not pause to boast about the service he has performed but will move on to perform his next service, the way the grape vine moves on to bear more grapes.”

stoicism

7,515

“Rejection of desire is liberating. Renunciation is a form of power.”

stoicism

7,661

“[Philosophers] have come to envy the philologist and the mathematician, and they have taken over all the inessential elements in those studies—with the result that they know more about devoting care and attention to their speech than about devoting such attention to their lives.”

stoicism

7,144

“He never exhibited rudeness, lost control of himself, or turned violent. No one ever saw him sweat. Everything was to be approached logically and with due consideration, in a calm and orderly fashion but decisively, and with no loose ends.”

stoicism

6,777

“Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is always the chance (about eight hundred and fifty to one) that another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping, and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be.”

stoicism

7,110

“What is divine deserves our respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. And our pity too, sometimes, for its inability to tell good from bad- as terrible a blindness as the kind that can't tell white from black.”

stoicism

6,898

“The Stoic approach is the lighthouse that guides us amidst the tempest, leading us to the land of dreams crafted in the forge of the unyielding present.”

stoicism

7,545

“It is impossible to trip and fall while walking slowly.”

stoicism

7,438

“Independence and unvarying reliability, and to pay attention to nothing, no matter how fleetingly, except the logos. And to be the same in all circumstances—intense pain, the loss of a child, chronic illness. And to see clearly, from his example, that a man can show both strength and flexibility. His patience in teaching. And to have seen someone who clearly viewed his expertise and ability as a teacher as the humblest of virtues. And to have learned how to accept favors from friends without losing your self-respect or appearing ungrateful. On Apolonius”

stoicism

7,121

“If being better is the surest way of feeling better, it must be better than feeling better.”

stoicism

7,127

“That we can change the shadow of an object without changing the object (by changing the position of the source of light) reminds us that we can change how we feel about a situation or person by changing only how we look at it or them.”

stoicism

7,286

“Destroying your mirrors leaves your facial blemishes intact.”

stoicism

7,264

“Najlepší spôsob obrany je nepodobať sa tým, čo nám ubližujú.”

stoicism

6,855

“I will keep a watch on myself straightway and—the most useful step—review my day. The fact that we do not look back over our lives makes us worse. We ponder—though rarely—what we are to do, but we do not ponder at all what we have done—and yet planning for the future depends on the past.”

stoicism

6,944

“Externals are nothing to a stoic. The falsehoods and artificial limitations of human society are nothing to proponents of the theater principle”

stoicism

7,571

“At any given moment, it is a beautiful day in many parts of the world.”

stoicism

6,962

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his mind. So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”

stoicism

7,080

“Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart—”

stoicism

6,888

“Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love.”

stoicism

6,987

“So - to the best of your ability - demonstrate your own guilt, conduct inquiries of your own into all the evidence against yourself. Play the part first of prosecutor, then of judge, and finally of pleader in mitigation. Be harsh with yourself at times.”

stoicism

7,196

“Whoever then has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them; but how could one who cannot distinguish good things from evil and things indifferent from both have power to love?”

stoicism

7,183

“We cannot be too young to die.”

stoicism

6,883

“Stand up straight, not straightened. The Gods give us everything, but not all at once.”

stoicism

6,914

“Birds weren’t given wings just to walk everywhere . . . and you weren’t born with resilience and a beautiful mind just to have an easy life.”

stoicism

7,307

“We get a taste of death, not when we’re asleep, but when we awake.”

stoicism

7,417

“Many are the things that have caused terror during the night and been turned into matters of laughter with the coming of daylight.”

stoicism

7,072

“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will — then your life will flow well.”

stoicism

7,513

“Those who died quietly asleep are not less dead than those who were killed awake by bombs.”

stoicism

7,650

“And here lies the essential difference between Stoicism and the modern-day 'cult of optimism.' For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind was tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word, 'happiness.' And tranquility was to be achieved not by strenuously chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one's circumstances.”

stoicism

7,357

“The thing whose acquisition ‘made’ you happy need not be stolen, lost, or broken for ‘it’ to make you unhappy.”

stoicism

7,609

“The Sage desires only one thing, virtue, and he is cautious about only one thing, vice. He is the same in every circumstance because what is most important lies within him, and not with external events, which are constantly changing.”

stoicism

7,114

“Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does- or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it?”

stoicism

7,583

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

stoicism

7,570

“It is our natural and moral duty as consumers of other living things to someday die.”

stoicism

6,770

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.”

stoicism

6,916

“I am not like the Gods! That was a painful thrust; I'm like the worm that burrows in the dust, Who, as he makes of dust his meager meal, Is crushed and buried by a wanderers heel Is it not dust that stares from every rack And narrows down this vaulting den? This moth's world full of bric-a-brac In which I live as in a pen? Here I should find for what I care? Should I read in a thousand books, maybe, That men have always suffered everywhere, Though now and then some man lived happily?- Why, hollow skull, do you grin like a faun? Save that your brain, like mine, once in dismay Searched for light day, but foundered in the heavy dawn”

stoicism

7,056

“Even a poisonous snake is safe to handle in cold weather, when it is sluggish. Its venom is still there, but inactive. In the same way, there are many people whose cruelty, ambition, or self-indulgence fails to match the most outrageous cases only by the grace of fortune.”

stoicism

7,423

“Life is divided into three periods, past, present and future. Of these, the present is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. For this last is the one over which Fortune has lost her power, which cannot be brought back to anyone’s control. But this is what preoccupied people lose: for they have no time to look back at their past, and even if they did, it is not pleasant to recall activities they are ashamed of.”

stoicism

6,822

“Thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of his own suit, a high resolve constrained him not to injure that of another. This is a lover's most stoical virtue, as the lack of it is a lover's most venial sin.”

stoicism

7,073

“Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.”

stoicism

6,838

“It is quite possible to be a good man without anyone realizing it.”

stoicism

7,130

“The best kind of pleasure comes from the indifference to pain … and pleasure.”

stoicism

7,371

“People often give us a piece of their mind with the intention to take away our peace of mind.”

stoicism

6,989

“Don’t take things too personally. Critique, failures, unwarranted advice - take it to mind, not to heart. What you hear out of the mouths of others are opinions and perspectives. It’s often worth listening to opinions and perspectives, but it’s not a requisite that you take them on board.”

stoicism

7,473

“She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her situation: of something not round nor before her.”

stoicism

7,344

“Let Nature make whatever use she pleases of matter, which is her own: lets us be cheerful and brave in the face of all, and consider that nothing of our own perishes. What is the duty of a good man? To offer himself to fate.”

stoicism

7,354

“Human beings are makers, usually of a mountain out of a molehill.”

stoicism

6,930

“He is a slave.'' But shall that stand in his way? Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all men are slaves to fear.”

stoicism

7,450

“We always have a choice as to, not what we hear, but what we listen to.”

stoicism

6,858

“Lives such as yours—how true it is!—though they should exceed a thousand years, will contract into the smallest span: but those vices of yours will swallow up any amount of time. This length of time you have, that reason prolongs, however swift nature makes its sojourn, is bound to pass quickly through your fingers; for you do not grasp it, or seek to hold on to it, or try to delay the passing of the swiftest thing of all, but allow it to depart, as if it were something surplus to requirement and easily replaced.”

stoicism

7,457

“A fool is a man who disregards legacy.”

stoicism

7,550

“The first principle of practical Stoicism is this: we don’t react to events; we react to our judgments about them, and the judgments are up to us.”

stoicism

7,354

“Human beings are makers, usually of a mountain out of a molehill.”

stoicism

7,526

“The happiest people are not those who have the most, but those who are the most grateful for what they have.”

stoicism

7,358

“And, just as it is harder to have good qualities when one is rich than when one is poor, it is harder to be a Stoic when one is wealthy, powerful, and respected than when one is destitute, miserable, and lonely.”

stoicism

6,928

“me dulcis saturet quies; obscuro positus loco leni perfruar otio, nullis nota Quiritibus aetas per tacitum fluat. sic cum transierint mei nullo cum strepitu dies. plebeius moriar senex. illi mors gravis incubat qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.”

stoicism

7,258

“I sacrificed much to be where I am today, yet I will sacrifice much more to get to where I need to be someday.”

stoicism

7,093

“Our rationality is a visitor.”

stoicism

7,379

“Equanimity is often mistaken for depression.”

stoicism

7,150

“Funerals greatly exaggerate the pleasantness of being alive, while they prevent us from thinking about the advantages of being dead.”

stoicism

6,871

“Ought not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed? By no means say so, but speak rather this way: This man who has been mistaken and deceived about the most important things, and blinded, not in the faculty of vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should we destroy him? If you speak thus you will see how inhuman this is which you say, and that it is just as if you would say, Ought we not destroy this blind and deaf man?”

stoicism

7,263

“Často sa dopúšťa bezprávia aj ten, kto nič nerobí, nielen ten, kto niečo robí.”

stoicism

7,413

“Consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of evil desires, and how much exertion others expend for the sake of making profit, and how much suffering those who are pursuing fame endure, and bear in mind that all of these people submit to all kinds of toil and hardship voluntarily. Is it then not monstrous that they for no honorable reward endure such things, while we for the sake of the ideal good - that is not only the avoidance of evil such as wrecks our lives, but also the acquisition of virtue, which we may call the provider of all goods -- are not ready to bear every hardship? And yet would not anyone admit how much better it is, in place of exerting oneself to win someone else's wife, to exert oneself the discipline of one's desires; in place of enduring hardships for the sake of money, the train oneself to want little; instead of giving oneself trouble about getting notoriety; instead of trying to find a way to injure an envied person, to enquire how not to envy anyone; and instead of slaving, as sycophants do, to win false friends, to undergo suffering in order to possess true friends? Since toil and hardship are a necessity for all, both for those who seek better and worse, it is preposterous that those pursuing the better are not much more eager in their efforts than those for whom there is small hope of reward for all their pains. ... It remains for me to say that who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since all good is gained by toil.”

stoicism

7,383

“Но Эпиктет призывал мужественно смотреть в лицо реальности, а реальность такова, что все люди смертны и никто из них не принадлежит нам и не останется с нами навечно. [...] Признав эту реальность, мы понимаем, что должны наслаждаться любовью наших близких и общением с ними, когда это возможно, а не принимать их как должное: ведь неминуемо настанет день, когда «установленное время года» пройдет.”

stoicism

6,788

“Misfortune nobly born is good fortune.”

stoicism

7,223

“To live is to owe life to die.”

stoicism

7,251

“Soon you will be dead and none of it will matter”

stoicism

7,363

“Sleep is often a form of escapism.”

stoicism

7,166

“You cannot really not care about what others think about you, yet care about whether or not they know that you do not care about what they think about you.”

stoicism

7,048

“Flattery looks very much like friendship, indeed not only resembles it but actually wins out against it. A person drinks it in with eager ears and takes it deeply to heart, delighted by the very qualities that make it dangerous.”

stoicism

7,620

“Man is mostly a collection of emotions, most of which he would do better not to be feeling.”

stoicism

7,134

“Gluttony is nothing other than lack of self-control with respect to food, and human beings prefer food that is pleasant to food that is nutritious.”

stoicism

7,100

“When you start to lose your temper, remember: There's nothing manly about rage. It's courtesy and kindness that define a human being- and a man. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners.”

stoicism

7,410

“[A] man is wealthy if he has attuned himself to his restricted means and has made himself rich on little.”

stoicism

7,113

“It was for the best. So Nature had no choice but to do it.”

stoicism