If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher.

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.

It is difficulties that show what men are.

Some things are up to us [eph' hêmin] and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions–in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing.

When men are unhappy, they do not imagine they can ever cease to be so; and when some calamity has fallen on them, they do not see how they can get rid of it. Nevertheless, both arrive; and the gods have ordered it so, in the end men seek it from the gods