For sheep don’t throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk.
Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.
So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously, What overwhelms people when they are about to leaves friends, family, old haunts and their accustomed way of life? Thoughts.
Sickness is a problem for the body, not the mind – unless the mind decides that it is a problem. Lameness, too, is the body’s problem, not the mind’s. Say this to yourself whatever the circumstance and you will find without fail that the problem pertains to something else, not to you.
We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our judgement about them.
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. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...
If they are wise, do not quarrel with them; if they are fools, ignore them.
There is no shame in making an honest effort.
Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.
Don’t put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.
For even sheep do not vomit up their grass and show to the shepherds how much they have eaten; but when they have internally digested the pasture, they produce externally wool and milk. Do you also show not your theorems to the uninstructed, but show the acts which come from their digestion.
An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.
What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes. ‘How does it come, then?’ As God wills.
It is a universal law – have no illusion – that every creature alive is attached to nothing so much as to its own self-interest.
Freedom isn’t secured by filling up on your heart’s desire but by removing your desire.
Whenever anyone criticizes or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right. They cannot be guided by your views, only their own; so if their views are wrong, they are the ones who suffer insofar as they are misguided.
No one is ever unhappy because of someone else.
Here are thieves and robbers and tribunals: and they that are called tyrants, who deem that they have after a fashion power over us, because of the miserable body and what appertains to it. Let us show them that they have power over none.
These reasonings have no logical connection: “I am richer than you; therefore I am your superior.” “I am more eloquent than you; therefore I am your superior.” The true logical connection is rather this: “I am richer than you; therefore my possessions must exceed yours.” “I am more eloquent than you; therefore my style must surpass yours.” But you, after all, consist in neither property nor in style.
Take care not to hurt the ruling faculty of your mind. If you were to guard against this in every action, you should enter upon those actions more safely.