Best Quotes from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday with Page Numbers

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.

What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated—tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom.

How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements.

All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way.

Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view.

A person who doesn’t know what the universe is, doesn’t know where they are.

The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, repulsion, preparation, purpose, and assent.

We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish.

Some things are in our control, while others are not.

Keep this thought at the ready at daybreak, and through the day and night—there is only one path to happiness, and that is in giving up all outside of your sphere of choice.

“A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance—unlike the angry and complaining.”

“Strength is the ability to maintain a hold of oneself.”

“Frame your thoughts like this—you are an old person, you won’t let yourself be enslaved by this any longer, no longer pulled like a puppet by every impulse.”

“When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want?”

“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”

“Don’t be bounced around, but submit every impulse to the claims of justice, and protect your clear conviction in every appearance.”

“The wise person will endure that, but won’t choose it—choosing to be at peace, rather than at war.”

“Many are harmed by fear itself, and many may have come to their fate while dreading fate.”

“You cry, I’m suffering severe pain! Are you then relieved from feeling it, if you bear it in an unmanly way?”

“You have the power to hold no opinion about a thing and to not let it upset our state of mind.”

“An important place to begin in philosophy is this: a clear perception of one’s own ruling principle.” — EPICTETUS

“Above all, it is necessary for a person to have a true self-estimate, for we commonly think we can do more than we really can.” — SENECA

“These things don’t go together. You must be a unified human being, either good or bad.” — EPICTETUS

“The person is free who lives as they wish, neither compelled, nor hindered, nor limited...” — EPICTETUS

“So, concerning the things we pursue... we owe this consideration—either there is nothing useful in them, or most aren’t useful.” — SENECA

“Heraclitus called self-deception an awful disease and eyesight a lying sense.” — DIOGENES LAERTIUS

“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along...” — EPICTETUS

“Above all, keep a close watch on this—that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level.” — EPICTETUS

“Hold sacred your capacity for understanding. For in it is all... that our ruling principle won’t allow anything to enter that is either inconsistent with nature or with the constitution of a logical creature.” — MARCUS AURELIUS

“The unrestricted person, who has in hand what they will in all events, is free.” — EPICTETUS

“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.16

“Drama, combat, terror, numbness, and subservience—every day these things wipe out your sacred principles, whenever your mind entertains them uncritically or lets them slip in.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 10.9

“Make sure you’re not made ‘Emperor,’ avoid that imperial stain. It can happen to you, so keep yourself simple, good, pure, saintly, plain, a friend of justice, god-fearing, gracious, affectionate, and strong for your proper work.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.30

“First off, don’t let the force of the impression carry you away. Say to it, ‘hold up a bit and let me see who you are and where you are from—let me put you to the test.’” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.18.24

“When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 2.1

“There are two things that must be rooted out in human beings—arrogant opinion and mistrust.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.14.8

“What is bad luck? Opinion. What are conflict, dispute, blame, accusation, irreverence, and frivolity? They are all opinions.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.3.18b–19

“Do away with the opinion I am harmed, and the harm is cast away too. Do away with being harmed, and harm disappears.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.7

“Believe me, it’s better to produce the balance-sheet of your own life than that of the grain market.” —SENECA, ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE, 18.3b

“Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.47

For philosophy doesn’t consist in outward display, but in taking heed to what is needed and being mindful of it.

First tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, then do what you have to do.

Those who receive the bare theories immediately want to spew them... First digest your theories and you won’t throw them up.

How much better is it to be known for doing well by many than for living extravagantly?

The raw material for the work of a good and excellent person is their own guiding reason.

What makes a beautiful human being? Isn’t it the presence of human excellence?

If you want some good, get it from yourself.

Where is Good? In our reasoned choices. Where is Evil? In our reasoned choices.

Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

“Indeed, no one can thwart the purposes of your mind—for they can’t be touched by fire, steel, tyranny, slander, or anything.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.41

“Why then are we offended? Why do we complain? This is what we’re here for.” —SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 5.7b–8

“You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible—and no one can keep you from this.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.32

“If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don’t imagine it impossible—for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.19

“How much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that aroused them in us!” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.18.8

“It is possible to curb your arrogance, to overcome pleasure and pain, to rise above your ambition, and to not be angry with stupid and ungrateful people—yes, even to care for them.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.8

“Every event has two handles—one by which it can be carried, and one by which it can’t.” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 43

“Don’t be ashamed of needing help. You have a duty to fulfill just like a soldier on the wall of battle.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.7

“While it’s true that someone can impede our actions, they can’t impede our intentions and our attitudes, which have the power of being conditional and adaptable.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.20

“Think of those who, not by fault of inconsistency but by lack of effort, are too unstable to live as they wish, but only live as they have begun.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 2.6b

"Whatever anyone does or says, for my part I’m bound to the good." —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.15

"Never shirk the proper dispatch of your duty, no matter if you are freezing or hot, groggy or well-rested, vilified or praised, not even if dying or pressed by other demands." —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.2

"The task of a philosopher: we should bring our will into harmony with whatever happens, so that nothing happens against our will and nothing that we wish for fails to happen." —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.14.7

"Protect your own good in all that you do, and as concerns everything else take what is given as far as you can make reasoned use of it." —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.3.11

"Good people will do what they find honorable to do, even if it requires hard work; they’ll do it even if it causes them injury; they’ll do it even if it will bring danger." —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 76.18

"On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind—I am awakening to the work of a human being." —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.1

"This is what you should teach me, how to be like Odysseus—how to love my country, wife and father." —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 88.7b

"Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around!" —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.37

"Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you’ve been made by nature for the purpose of working with others." —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.12

"Receive without pride, let go without attachment." —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.33

“Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic.”

“Indeed, how could exile be an obstacle to a person’s own cultivation, or to attaining virtue when no one has ever been cut off from learning or practicing what is needed by exile?”

“At this moment you aren’t on a journey, but wandering about, being driven from place to place, even though what you seek—to live well—is found in all places.”

“You must stop blaming God, and not blame any person. You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice.”

“Silence is a lesson learned from the many sufferings of life.”

“Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties—hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.”

“Wherever a person can live, there one can also live well.”

“Don’t look around to see if people will know about it. Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward.”

“Don’t tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report.”

“We don’t abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them.”

A STRONG SOUL IS BETTER THAN GOOD LUCK.

Men, the philosopher’s lecture-hall is a hospital—you shouldn’t walk out of it feeling pleasure, but pain.

We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven’t prepared.

I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.

Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable.

You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.

Consider who you are. Above all, a human being, carrying no greater power than your own reasoned choice.

No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by her.

But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate.

It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress.

"Does the light of a lamp shine and keep its glow until its fuel is spent? Why shouldn’t your truth, justice, and self-control shine until you are extinguished?"—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.15

"But the wise person can lose nothing. Such a person has everything stored up for themselves, leaving nothing to Fortune, their own goods are held firm, bound in virtue, which requires nothing from chance, and therefore can’t be either increased or diminished."—SENECA, ON THE FIRMNESS OF THE WISE, 5.4

"Meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.38

"That which isn’t good for the hive, isn’t good for the bee."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.54

"Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue."—ZENO, QUOTED IN DIOGENES LAERTIUS, LIVES OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, 7.1.26

"It’s in keeping with Nature to show our friends affection and to celebrate their advancement, as if it were our very own."—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 109.15

"The person who does wrong, does wrong to themselves. The unjust person is unjust to themselves—making themselves evil."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.4

"Yes, getting your wish would have been so nice. But isn’t that exactly why pleasure trips us up? Instead, see if these things might be even nicer—a great soul, freedom, honesty, kindness, saintliness."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.9

"When the standards have been set, things are tested and weighed. The work of philosophy is to examine and uphold the standards."—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.11.23–25

"Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging."—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.59

“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.” — EPICTETUS

“It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance and a sense of gratitude.” — EPICTETUS

“The most practiced Stoics take it a step further... to actually enjoy what has happened—whatever it is.”

“What God doesn’t will, I do not wish for.” — EPICTETUS

“Remember that you are an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright.” — EPICTETUS

“Life is opinion.” — MARCUS AURELIUS

“It’s not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it.” — MARCUS AURELIUS

“If we judge as good and evil only the things in the power of our own choice, then there is no room left for blaming gods or being hostile to others.” — MARCUS AURELIUS

“Don’t allow yourself to be heard any longer griping about public life, not even with your own ears!” — MARCUS AURELIUS

“Everything is change. Embrace that. Flow with it.” — MARCUS AURELIUS

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. We may claw and fight and work to own things, but those things can be taken away in a second.”

“Live each day as if it were your last.”

“Anything that can be prevented, taken away, or coerced is not a person’s own—but those things that can’t be blocked are their own.”

“Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible.”

“Don’t behave as if you are destined to live forever. What’s fated hangs over you. As long as you live and while you can, become good now.”

“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature.”

“It’s better to conquer grief than to deceive it.”

“Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind.”

“This is the mark of perfection of character—to spend each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending.”

“You only have to learn to live like the healthy person does . . . living with complete confidence.”