Best Stoic Quotes: The Most Famous Quotes From Stoic Philosophy
"Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle. Some things are within your control. And some things are not." - Epictetus
Even though the Stoics emphasised action over words in their philosophy, they still managed to conjure up some of the most famous, powerful and life-changing quotes of the last couple of thousand years.
This page is dedicated to the very best Stoic quotes. These quotes are split between the three most famous Stoic philosophers: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus. If each quote is given the necessary attention and has time to melt into understanding, each one can be as life-changing and perspective-shifting as the next.
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Best Stoic Quotes - Marcus Aurelius
"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”
"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."
"To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony."
"It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own."
"You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
"Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."
"Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight."
Seneca Quotes
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
"It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."
"Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life."
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
"You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire."
"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."
"They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn."
"If what you have seems insufficient to you, then though you possess the world, you will yet be miserable."
"People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy."
"As long as you live, keep learning how to live."
Epictetus Quotes
“People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
“Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.”
“Who is your master? Anyone who has control over things upon which you’ve set your heart, or over things which you seek to avoid.”
"Nothing great is created suddenly. 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..."
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid."
"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."