36 powerful stoic quotes to supercharge your life (plus free stoic handbook)

I’ve explored how adopting a stoic life philosophy can help me become a lot happier. In the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy Irvine argues that stoic philosophy can be adopted every day and, for example, Socrates was a great philosopher not via his arguments or conclusions, but,

the extent to which he allowed his way of life to be affected by his philosophical speculations . . . integrating his theoretical and speculative concerns into the context of his daily activities.

So with this in mind, here’s a few of my favourite stoic quotes:

Epictetus: “First, decide who you would be. Then, do what you must do.”
“When I see a man in a state of anxiety, I say, What can this man want? If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he still be anxious?”
“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one’s desires, but by the removal of desire.”
“Nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgment alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress.”
“If you would not fail of what you seek, or incur what you shun, desire nothing that belongs to others; shun nothing that lies beyond your own control; otherwise you must necessarily be disappointed in what you seek, and incur what you shun.”
“In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind, is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our opinions and the decisions of our will.”
“Where is the good? In the will. Where is the evil? In the will. Where is neither of them? In those things which are independent of the will.”
“Who then is the invincible? It is he whom none of the things disturb which are independent of the will.”
“Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them.”
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
“Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices me wherever I am or whatever Ido.”
“I am formed by nature for my own good: I am not formed for my own evil.”
“If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone.”
“Every person must deal with each thing according to the opinion that he holds about it.”
“Permit nothing to cleave to you that is not your own; nothing to grow to you that may give you agony when it is torn away.”
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
“God is best worshiped in the shrine of the heart by the desire to know and obey him.”Marcus Aurelius:”It loved to happen.”
“The universe is in change, life is an opinion.”
“Get rid of the judgment … get rid of the ‘I am hurt,’ you are rid of the hurt itself.”
“The mind in itself wants nothing, unless it creates a want for itself; therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not perturb and impede itself.”
“Everything is right for me, which is right for you, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which comes in due time for you. Everything is fruit to me which your seasons bring, O Nature. From you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return.”
“Let there be freedom from perturbation with respect to the things which come from external causes, and in actions whose cause lies in yourself, be just; that is, let impulse and action terminate in social acts, for this is according to your nature.”
“If you are distressed by any external thing, it is not this thing which disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.”
“Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.”
“It is in our power to refrain from any opinion about things and not to be disturbed in our souls; for things in themselves have no natural power to force our judgments.”
“If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you were bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, but satisfied to live now according to nature, speaking heroic truth in every word which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man able to prevent this.”
“Everywhere and at all times it is in your power to accept reverently your present condition, to behave justly to those about you, and to exert your skill to control your thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined.”
“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!”
“Outward things cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree; nor have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul; but the soul turns and moves itself alone.”
“Even when the mind is feeling its way cautiously and working its way round a problem from every angle, it is still moving directly onwards and making for its goal.”
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Seneca: “The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live.”
“That which Fortune has not given, she cannot take away.”
“Let Nature deal with matter, which is her own, as she pleases; let us be cheerful and brave in the face of everything, reflecting that it is nothing of our own that perishes.”
“The soul should know whither it is going and whence it came, what is good for it and what is evil, what it seeks and what it avoids, and what is that Reason which distinguishes between the desirable and the undesirable, and thereby tames the madness of our desires and calms the violence of our fears.”
“Virtue is nothing else than right reason.”