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Stoic Quotes — 58 Stoic Quotes, Each Checked to Its Source

Yet they, believe me, who await No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.

Matthew Arnold · Resignation (1849), l. 247

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Marcus Aurelius · Written in Greek in his private notebook while on campaign; the Long translation of 1862 is the wording everyone knows.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca · From the moral letters to Lucilius.

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

William Shakespeare · King Richard II (1595), I, iii

All that is harmony for you, my Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for you is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that your seasons bring, Nature. All things come of you, have their being in you, and return to you.

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, IV, 23

I am not now in fortune’s power: He that is down can fall no lower.

Samuel Butler · Hudibras, pt. I, canto III

Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.

Queen Victoria · Letter to King Leopold of Belgium (April 4, 1848)

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Plato · Socrates in Plato’s Apology

There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

William Shakespeare · The source reads: “Not a whit, we defy augury; there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.” · Hamlet (1600–1601), V, ii

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

Marcus Aurelius · The source reads: “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” · The emperor to himself, on how small the needs of a good life are.

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

Walt Whitman · Me Imperturbe (1860)

Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.

Horace · Epodes, Epistles, I, iv

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Marcus Aurelius · Private notes written on campaign and never meant for publication; Gregory Hays's 2002 translation.

Endure, my heart: you once endured something even more dreadful.

Homer · Odyssey, XX

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius · The source reads: “Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.” · A private note written on campaign; the familiar line is a modern paraphrase of George Long's 1862 translation.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.

Marcus Aurelius · The source reads: “Loss is nothing else than change. But the universal nature delights in change.” · A note to himself in the ninth book of the Meditations, written on campaign in the 170s; the familiar form is a modernised rendering of George Long's 1862 translation.

I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.

Abraham Lincoln · The source reads: “If the good people, in their wisdom, shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.” · Address at New Salem, Illinois (March 9, 1832)

What is over and done with, one does not discuss. What has already taken its course, one does not criticize; what already belongs to the past, one does not censure.

Confucius · Analects, 3:21

He who seeks only coarse food to eat, water to drink, and bent arm for pillow, will without looking for it find happiness to boot.

Confucius · Analects, 7:15

Let us not burden our remembrances With a heaviness that’s gone.

William Shakespeare · The Tempest (1611–1612), V, i This thing of darkness I

Leisure with dignity.

Cicero · Pro Publio Sestio (In Defense of Publius Sestius), sec. 98

Stoic Quotes