If someone irritates you, it is only your own response that is irritating you. Therefore, when anyone seems to be provoking you, remember that it is only your judgment of the incident that provokes you. -.
Never say of anything I have lost it, only say that I have given it back.
Each man’s life is a kind of campaign, and a long and complicated one at that. You have to maintain the character of a soldier, and do each separate act at the bidding of the General.
Nothing great comes into being all at once.
It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.
It is my business, to manage carefully and dexterously whatever happens.
It is not the events but our viewpoint toward events that is the determining factor. We ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than removing tumors and abscesses from the body.
Don’t be prideful with any excellence that is not your own.
Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.
God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.
These are the signs of a wise man: to reprove nobody, to praise nobody, to blame nobody, nor even to speak of himself or his own merits.
If you would be well spoken of, learn to be well-spoken; and having learnt to be well- spoken, strive also to be well-doing; so shall you succeed in being well spoken of.
We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those parts. Our duty is confined to playing them well.
If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.
Consider first the nature of the business in hand; then examine thy own nature, whether thou hast strength to undertake it.
You will do the greatest service to the state if you shall raise, not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses rather than for mean slaves to lurk in great houses.
It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.
Fortune is an evil chain to the body, and vice to the soul.
You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.
Lampis the ship owner, on being asked how he acquired his great wealth, replied, My great wealth was acquired with no difficulty, but my small wealth, my first gains, with much labor.