The flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are.

In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.

If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault... Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.

It has been ordained that there be summer and winter, abundance and dearth, virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole, and (Zeus) has given each of us a body, property, and companions.

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

What will the world be quite overturned when you die?

Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.