August

That cucumber is bitter, so toss it out! There are thorns on the path, then keep away! Enough said. Why ponder the existence of nuisance? Such thinking would make you a laughing-stock to the true student of Nature, just as a carpenter or cobbler would laugh if you pointed out the sawdust and chips on the floors of their shops. Yet while those shopkeepers have dustbins for disposal, Nature has no need of them.

Indeed, how could exile be an obstacle to a person's own cultivation, or to attaining virtue when no one has ever been cut off from learning or practicing what is needed by exile?

At this moment you aren't on a journey, but wandering about, being driven from place to place, even though what you seek — to live well — is found in all places. Is there any place more full of confusion than the Forum? Yet even there you can live at peace, if needed.

You must stop blaming God, and not blame any person. You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice. You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy, or regret.

Silence is a lesson learned from the many sufferings of life.

Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties — hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.

Wherever a person can live, there one can also live well; life is also in the demands of court, there too one can live well.

Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that's in your power. Don't look around to see if people will know about it. Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.

Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report — the report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick — but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions, and don't add to them in your head — this way nothing can happen to you.

We don't abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them.

When the problem arose for us whether habit or theory was better for getting virtue — if by theory is meant what teaches us correct conduct, and by habit we mean being accustomed to act according to this theory — Musonius thought habit to be more effective.

Many words have been spoken by Plato, Zeno, Chrysippus, Posidonius, and by a whole host of equally excellent Stoics. I'll tell you how people can prove their words to be their own — by putting into practice what they've been preaching.

You've endured countless troubles — all from not letting your ruling reason do the work it was made for — enough already!

Philosophy isn't a parlor trick or made for show. It's not concerned with words, but with facts. It's not employed for some pleasure before the day is spent, or to relieve the uneasiness of our leisure. It shapes and builds up the soul, it gives order to life, guides action, shows what should and shouldn't be done — it sits at the rudder steering our course as we vacillate in uncertainties. Without it, no one can live without fear or free from care. Countless things happen every hour that require advice, and such advice is to be sought out in philosophy.

This can be swiftly taught in very few words: virtue is the only good; there is no certain good without virtue; and virtue resides in our nobler part, which is the rational one. And what can this virtue be? True and steadfast judgment. For from this will arise every mental impulse, and by it every appearance that spurs our impulses will be rendered clear.

Just as the nature of rational things has given to each person their rational powers, so it also gives us this power — just as nature turns to its own purpose any obstacle or any opposition, sets its place in the destined order, and co-opts it, so every rational person can convert any obstacle into the raw material for their own purpose.

For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it — my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear we would be making progress.

A good person is invincible, for they don't rush into contests in which they aren't the strongest. If you want their property, take it — take also their staff, profession, and body. But you will never compel what they set out for, nor trap them in what they would avoid. For the only contest the good person enters is that of their own reasoned choice. How can such a person not be invincible?

It is said that if you would have peace of mind, busy yourself with little. But wouldn't a better saying be do what you must and as required of a rational being created for public life? For this brings not only the peace of mind of doing few things, but the greater peace of doing them well. Since the vast majority of our words and actions are unnecessary, corralling them will create an abundance of leisure and tranquility. As a result, we shouldn't forget at each moment to ask, is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must corral not only unnecessary actions but unnecessary thoughts, too, so needless acts don't tag along after them.

Inwardly, we ought to be different in every respect, but our outward dress should blend in with the crowd.

It's ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery, engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might remain its own until the very end. For such a soul will never be at rest - by longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy present things.

It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any acton should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won't tire and give up, if you aren't busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed.

Therefore, explain why a wise person shouldn't get drunk — not with words, but by the facts of its ugliness and offensiveness. It's most easy to prove that so-called pleasures, when they go beyond proper measure, arebut punishments.

I'll never be ashamed to quote a bad writer with a good saying.

Won't you be walking in your predecessors' footsteps? I surely will use the older path, but if I find a shorter and smoother way, I'll blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths aren't our masters, but our guides. Truth stands open to everyone, it hasn't been monopolized.

I was shipwrecked before I even boarded … the journey showed me this — how much of what we have is unnecessary, and how easily we can decide to rid ourselves of these things whenever it's necessary, never suffering the loss.

Heraclitus would shed tears whenever he went out in public — Democritus laughed. One saw the whole as a parade of miseries, the other of follies. And so, we should take a lighter view of things and bear them with an easy spirit, for it is more human to laugh at life than to lament it.

The founder of the universe, who assigned to us the laws of life, provided that we should live well, but not in luxury. Everything needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury requires is gathered bymany miseries and anxieties. Let us use this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.

No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don't have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.

Anything that must yet be done, virtue can do with courage and promptness. For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses.

Whenever you take offense at someone's wrongdoing, immediately turn to your own similar failings, such as seeing money as good, or pleasure, or a little fame — whatever form it takes. By thinking on this, you'll quickly forget your anger, considering also what compels them — for what else could they do? Or, if you are able, remove their compulsion.