Stoic quotes

The internet is full of Stoic quotations no Stoic ever said. "We suffer more in imagination than in reality" is attributed to Seneca and appears nowhere in his work. "Dare to be wise" is Horace.

This list has been checked against that, and separates three things that elsewhere get lumped together. What actually stands in the source. What is a free rendering of a longer passage. And what tradition has attributed to someone without the text surviving.

That distinction is why this list exists. Each quotation also appears in the exercises themselves, beside an item where it adds something.

From the sources 166

These appear in the surviving texts.

Epictetus

It is not the one who abuses you who insults you, but your judgment that he insults you.
If someone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, answer: he did not know my other faults, or he would have mentioned those too.
Act your given part well; to choose it belongs to another.
It is impossible to learn what one thinks one already knows.
Nothing great comes into being all at once, not even a bunch of grapes or a fig.
Do not wait until you can speak about virtue; act on it.
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.
First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do.
Never call yourself a philosopher; simply do what follows from your principles.
Never say of anything 'I have lost it', but 'I have given it back'.
Seek not that things should happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do.
Do not demand that things happen as you wish; wish them to happen as they do.
Illness hinders the body, not the will, unless the will permits it.
Some things are within our power, and some are not.
When someone acts badly toward you, remember that he acts from his own view of what is good.
Everything has two handles: one by which it can be carried, and one by which it cannot.
It is not things that disturb us, but our judgments about things.
If your brother acts unjustly, do not take hold of the injustice, but of the fact that he is your brother.
Riches consist not in having many possessions, but in having few wants.
If you wish to be rich, do not add to your money, but subtract from your desire.
Difficulties show a person's character.
If you wish to improve, be content to appear foolish.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
Only the educated are free.
It is not the man who reviles you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.
No one is free who is not master of himself.
Illness is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses.
What you ought to do is generally measured by the relations you stand in.
Be silent for the most part, or say what is necessary, and in few words.
I am richer than you, therefore I am better: that does not follow.
Sheep do not bring the shepherd grass to show how much they have eaten; they digest it and bear wool and milk.
You are an actor in a play the author decides: your task is to play the part well.
Circumstances do not make a person; they reveal him to himself.
Impression, wait for me a little: let me first see what you are and where you come from.
How long will you go on putting off thinking yourself worthy of the best?
It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
Never say of anything: I have lost it, but: I have given it back.
Do not seek for things to happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do.
Never say of anything that you have lost it, but that you have given it back.
Sickness impedes the body, not the will, unless the will itself consents.
Show sympathy with the one who grieves, but do not let it sink in within you.
It is not things themselves that disturb people, but their opinions about things.
Remember that you are an actor in a play whose director is somebody else.
Freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by removing it.
Whoever treats you badly does so because he believes he is right.
If you take on a role beyond your strength, you both fail in it and neglect the one you could have filled.
Some things are within our power, others are not.

Seneca

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
The first movement of the mind is not within our power.
The greater part of life passes while we are doing something other than living.
While we postpone, life speeds by.
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
Associate with those who will make a better person of you.
No wind is favorable to one who does not know to which port he is sailing.
It is not the one who has little, but the one who craves more, who is poor.
Those who cross the sea change the sky above them, not their mind.
The bravest sight in the world is someone struggling against adversity.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Whoever fears death will never do anything worthy of a living person.
You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.
If you wish to be loved, love.
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
It is not that we have little time, but that we waste much of it.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
Nothing is ours except time.
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which depends upon tomorrow and wastes today.
It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.
People are frugal in guarding their 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.
To be everywhere is to be nowhere.
Fate leads the willing, and drags the unwilling.
No one is more unhappy than the person who never faces adversity.
He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.
No one is worthy of a god unless he has paid no heed to riches.
A great fortune is a great slavery.
He who has learned to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life.
A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a person perfected without trials.
Let us see to it that the memory of those we have lost is a pleasant one.
There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us.
The reward of a good deed is to have done it.
While we are postponing life, it is passing.
Money has never made anyone rich; on the contrary it makes everyone greedier for more.
What fortune has not given you, it cannot take away.
Economy comes too late when the bottom is in sight.
You cannot both bend the world to your will and keep your peace of mind.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
Long is the road through precepts, short and effective through examples.
Whoever is everywhere is nowhere.
He who gives should at once forget what he gave; he who receives should never forget it.
Everything, Lucilius, belongs to others; only time is ours.
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
Do not be unhappy before your time.
Let us cherish and use old age; it is full of pleasure if you know how to use it.
Man is something sacred to man.
Pain is slight, if opinion adds nothing to it.
No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it.
Life is long enough, if you know how to use it.
We are limbs of one great body.
A plant that is often moved never takes root.

Marcus Aurelius

Take away the judgment, and the complaint is taken away.
What stands in the way becomes the way.
You have power over your mind, not over events outside you.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Be strict with yourself and lenient with others.
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature's delight.
The best revenge is not to become like him.
It is not death a man should fear, but never beginning to live.
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it with the same weapons of reason that arm you today.
Look well into yourself; there is a source of strength that will always spring up if you will always look.
If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.
Do every act of your life as though it were the last act of your life.
What is not good for the hive is not good for the bee.
Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live.
Nowhere can a person find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
People exist for the sake of one another. Teach them or bear with them.
When you are offended by someone's fault, turn to yourself and consider what similar thing you do.
Kindness is invincible, provided it is genuine and without pretense.
Confine yourself to the present.
Men exist for the sake of one another; teach them then, or bear with them.
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
If you are pained by anything external, it is not the thing but your judgment of it.
If anyone can show me that I think or act wrongly, I will gladly change.
Nowhere can a man retreat more quietly than into his own soul.
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind.
Strange that each man loves himself above all others, yet values his own opinion of himself less than the opinions of others.
Time is a river of events, and the current is strong.
People exist for one another. Teach them, then, or bear with them.
Take away the judgment, and 'I have been harmed' is taken away.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make of it.
Nothing is new: everything is familiar, and short-lived besides.
We were born to work together, like feet, like hands, like eyelids.
Every man is worth just so much as the things he busies himself with.
The best kind of revenge is not to become like them.
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.
When rising is hard, think: I rise to do the work of a human being.
Nowhere can a man withdraw more quietly or more undisturbed than into his own soul.
Do not think of what you lack, but count what you have, and consider how you would long for it if it were not yours.
If you are pained by anything external, it is not the thing but your judgment about it, and that you can erase now.
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does.
Loss is nothing else than change.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing: one must stand ready for what comes unforeseen.
How cruel it is not to allow men to strive after what appears to them fitting.
What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.
Give yourself a gift: the present moment.
Accustom yourself to attend carefully to what another says, and as far as possible enter into his mind.
Receive prosperity without arrogance, and be ready to let it go.
Corruption of the mind is a worse pestilence than any tainting of the air.

Musonius Rufus

If one accomplishes some good with toil, the toil passes, but the good remains.
In training the body we train the soul as well.
We must train the soul, for we carry in ourselves the seeds of both virtue and vice.
Practice is more effective than theory.

Zeno

Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.
Nature gave us two ears and one mouth, so that we may listen more than we speak.

Cleanthes

Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.

Epicurus

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

Freely after the source 32

These render a longer passage freely. The thought is the author’s, the wording is not.

Epictetus

For every challenge I ask myself what power nature has given me to meet it.
“I speak better than you, so I am more than you”: the first may be true, the second does not follow.
Whoever can make you angry has become your master.
The first task of a thinking person: to test impressions, and accept nothing untested.
Aim desire and aversion only at what is yours, and nobody can make you unhappy.
What belongs to another you can neither give nor take. What is yours, nobody can take from you.
You are bound to a father, not to a good father.
Keep before your eyes each day what you fear, and nothing will take you by surprise.
In company, speak as little as possible about other people: neither praising, nor blaming, nor comparing.
First consider what a thing demands of you, and only then take it on.
Do not give your assent to an impression before you have tested it.

Seneca

The freedom of your mind does not depend on the fullness of your days.
What use is it to run ahead to meet your misfortune?
Wealth by nature is bounded; wealth by opinion has no end.
What fortune gives, it gives on loan; the wise man is not startled when it asks it back.
Perhaps the trouble will come, perhaps not; meanwhile it is not here.
What fortune gives us we hold on loan, not in ownership.
What you lend you must be able to spare; count it among what you have already given away.
Let us enjoy our friends while we may; how long that is, nobody knows.
What you fear may well never come; meanwhile you suffer as if it already had.

Marcus Aurelius

Do less, but do what is necessary.
Whatever happens, it remains open to me to make something good of it.
As emperor my city is Rome; as a human being, the world.
Cold or warm, tired or rested: do what has to be done.
Look at the ages before you: the same play, only different actors.
Do not force the impression away; hold to what is there, and let the rest pass.
Do good the way the vine bears grapes: without asking anything in return.
Say to yourself in the morning: today I shall meet the meddler, the ungrateful, the overbearing.
If you have strayed from reason, return to it.
He who changes his mind and follows a just correction is no less free.

Musonius Rufus

Virtue is not knowledge alone; it is practice.

Hierocles

Draw the outer circles inward: treat the stranger one circle closer.

Attributed 5

These are attributed by tradition, but the source text has not survived.

Epictetus

If someone speaks ill of you and it is true, correct yourself; if it is false, laugh at it.

Zeno

I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered shipwreck.

Antisthenes

To do much good and hear ill spoken of you, that is kingly.
To do good and be spoken ill of is kingly.

Cato

I only speak when I am certain that what I am about to say is not better left unsaid.

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