Real Stoic Quotes, Properly Sourced (Marcus, Epictetus & Seneca)
Search “Stoic quotes” and you’ll get a flood of inspirational images many of them misattributed, paraphrased beyond recognition, or simply made up. It’s ironic: a philosophy obsessed with truth gets quoted more carelessly than almost any other. So here’s the antidote genuine Stoic quotes, organised by theme, every one traced to the actual work it comes from, in public-domain translations. No fakes, no “probably Marcus Aurelius.”
The three voices here are the Roman Stoics we still read: Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca.
On what you control
Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 1 (trans. Elizabeth Carter)
Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 5 (trans. Elizabeth Carter)
Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 8 (trans. Elizabeth Carter)
On adversity and fate
Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose, unless that is your choice. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 9 (trans. Elizabeth Carter)
Let us think of everything that can happen as something which will happen.
Seneca, Moral Letters 24 (trans. R. M. Gummere)
Never say of anything, “I have lost it”; but, “I have returned it.”
Epictetus, Enchiridion 11 (trans. Elizabeth Carter)
On time and mortality
We do not have a very short time assigned to us, but we lose a great deal of it.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
The longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just the same.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.14 (trans. George Long)
Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.11 (trans. George Long)
(For a practical way to use these, see our 7-day memento mori practice.)
On other people and character
We are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1 (trans. George Long)
A good disposition is invincible, if it be genuine, and not an affected smile and acting a part.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.18 (trans. George Long)
In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present — I am rising to the work of a human being.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1 (trans. George Long)
On wealth and “enough”
He does not love riches, but he prefers to have them; he does not receive them into his spirit, but only into his house.
Seneca, On the Happy Life (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
Men covetously guard their property from waste, but when it comes to waste of time, they are most prodigal of that of which it would become them to be sparing.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life (trans. Aubrey Stewart)
A note on sourcing
Every quote above links to the work it comes from, in a public-domain translation Marcus in George Long’s, Epictetus in Elizabeth Carter’s, Seneca in Aubrey Stewart’s and Richard Gummere’s. That’s also the test for any Stoic quote you find elsewhere: a real one can be traced to a specific passage in the Meditations, the Enchiridion, or Seneca’s essays and letters. If no one can tell you where it’s from, treat it as decoration not Stoicism.
Related reading
Sources
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. George Long (public domain) Standard Ebooks.
- Epictetus, Enchiridion, trans. Elizabeth Carter (public domain) Internet Classics Archive (MIT).
- Seneca, On the Shortness of Life & On the Happy Life, trans. Aubrey Stewart; Moral Letters, trans. R. M. Gummere (all public domain).
