“The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.”

Wisdom means understanding without any doubt that circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they may. People behave as they will.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

Progress is not achieved by luck or accident, but by working on yourself daily.

Ruin and recovering are both from within.

People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.

Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

To live a life of virtue, match up your thoughts, words, and deeds.

Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.

In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity it is the most difficult of all things.

I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.

Do not try to seem wise to others.

Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?

When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.