"You are a little soul carrying around a corpse, as Epictetus used to say."

"Control your perceptions. Direct your actions properly. Accept what is outside your control. Willingly do what needs to be done."

"Do not be concerned with what people think of you. You are not living for them."

"The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter."

"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 c…"