Epictetus

It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.

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

To say that 'I will do it tomorrow' is to say that 'I will not do it at all.'

Do not seek to have everything that happens happen as you wish, but choose to wish that everything that happens happen as it does, and your life will proceed smoothly.

If you wish for anything good, you must get it from yourself.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

When you are about to say anything, first examine what you are going to say, and then speak.

Remember that you are an actor in a play, and the play is just as the author wishes it to be. If he wants it to be short, it is short; if long, it is long. If he wants you to play a beggar, play him capably; if a lame man, or a ruler, or a private citizen, do the same. For this is your business: to play the role assigned you well.

The price of apathy is to be at the mercy of those who are not.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

What does not transmit light creates darkness.

It is difficulties that show what men are.

You are not your body, you are a soul.

If you want to live a life free from trouble, you must train your mind to be indifferent to external things.

Freedom is not the right to do what you want, but the power to do what is right.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

If you would not be a man of many words, be a man of many deeds.

It is not poverty that makes a man miserable, but covetousness.

Every man's life is a train of choices, and every choice has a consequence.