Marcus Aurelius

Meditations

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.”

“Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler. Taking up his post like a soldier and patiently awaiting the recall.”

“Be like the rock against which the waves continually break. It stands firm and tames the fury of the sea.”

“Nothing happens to anyone that he can’t endure. The same thing happens to other people, and they weather it unharmed.”

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

“The best revenge is to be unlike the one who performed the injustice.”

“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?”

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimation of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

“A cucumber is bitter. Throw it aside. There are briars in the road. Go around them. This is enough. Do not add, ‘And why were such things made in the world?’”

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.”

“If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop talking about what a good man is, and just be one.”

“Someone despises me. That’s their problem.”

“Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment.”

Epictetus

Enchiridion

“How long will you put off thinking yourself worthy of improvement? You have received the philosophical theorems, with which you ought to be familiar. What other master do you wait for, then, to begin the work? You are no longer a boy, but a grown man. This instant, think yourself worthy of living as a man, grown up and proficient. And if any instance of pain or pleasure is set before you, remember that now is the combat, now the Olympiad comes on!”

James Stockdale

The Stoic Warrior's Triad

“It’s very quiet in a parachute, and I can hear the rifle shots down below and can match them up with bullet rips occurring in the parachute canopy above me. On the ground, I’m immediately gang-tackled by 10 or 15 town roughnecks. By the time the beating was over, I had a very badly broken leg that I felt sure would be with me for life. That turned out to be right. I felt only minor relief when I hazily recalled crippled Epictetus’s admonition in Enchiridion 9: ‘Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will; and say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens. For you will find it to be an impediment to something else, but not truly to yourself.’”