Stoic Philosophy

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.

The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.

The limit of happiness is the presence of God, which completely fills the whole soul with his whole incorporeal and eternal light.

Virtue is nothing else than right reason.

Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.

Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that its natural motion is not, if uninterrupted, in a straight line, but circular, as around some inner object, about a center, the point to which it owes its origin.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Seek not the good in external things;seek it in yourselves.