Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.
Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.
It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.
We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.
Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.
If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.
Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.
If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
No great thing is created suddenly.
You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.
If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.
To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.
What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.
Only the educated are free.
The good or ill of a man lies within his own will.
Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.
Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.