No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity.
If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault. Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
Books are the training weights of the mind.
If you wish to be a writer, write.
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control. Stop aspiring to be anyone other than your own best self: for that does fall within your control.
Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.
Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.
Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.
Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.
It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.
Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.
We can’t control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character.
Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
No great thing is created suddenly.
Don’t demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.
What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.