The 100 Best Stoic Quotes to Help You Live Your Best Life

To dive deeper into the wisdom of Stoicism, here are 100 of the most powerful and inspiring quotes from famous Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, along with a few from modern thinkers influenced by Stoic philosophy.

Quotes on Virtue and Character

1. "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." – Marcus Aurelius

2. "If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it." – Marcus Aurelius

3. "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." – Seneca

4. "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do." – Epictetus

Quotes on Resilience and Adversity

1. "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." – Marcus Aurelius

2. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." – Marcus Aurelius

3. "Choose not to be harmed — and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed — and you haven't been." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality." – Seneca

5. "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests." – Epictetus

Quotes on Wisdom and Reason

1. "To be calm is the highest achievement of the self." – Zen proverb

2. "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." – Epictetus

3. "The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." – Seneca

5. "Ignorance is the cause of fear." – Seneca

Quotes on Living in the Present Moment

1. "The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately." – Seneca

2. "The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing." – Marcus Aurelius

3. "Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?" – Epictetus

Quotes on Accepting What Is

1. "Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well." – Epictetus

2. "Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." – Marcus Aurelius

3. "What's meant to be will always find a way." – Zeno

4. "Man conquers the world by conquering himself." – Zeno

5. "Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant." – Seneca

Quotes on Self-Discipline and Mastery

1. "You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think." – Marcus Aurelius

2. "Curb your desire—don't set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need." – Epictetus

3. "The best revenge is not to be like your enemy." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do." – Marcus Aurelius

Quotes on Focusing on What You Can Control

1. "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." – Marcus Aurelius

2. "Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens." – Epictetus

3. "The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control." – Epictetus

4. "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have." – Epictetus

Quotes on Contribution and Service

1. "What matters most is not what these obstacles are but how we see them, how we react to them, and whether we keep our composure." – Ryan Holiday

2. "Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness." – Seneca

3. "Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants." – Epictetus

4. "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." – Epictetus

5. "A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions." – Marcus Aurelius

Quotes on Embracing Change and Impermanence

1. "Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. (Everything changes, nothing perishes.)" – Ovid

2. "Loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature's delight." – Marcus Aurelius

3. "The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." – Heraclitus

Quotes on Finding Peace and Contentment

1. "True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient." – Seneca

2. "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." – Seneca

3. "If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "He who is contented is rich." – Lao Tzu

5. "Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not." – Epictetus

Quotes on Gratitude and Perspective

1. "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." – Epicurus

2. "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." – Epictetus

3. "Don't set your mind on things you don't possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren't already yours." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts." – Henry David Thoreau

5. "True abundance is not about what you have, it is about how you feel about what you have." – Cesar Millan

Quotes on Simplicity and Minimalism

1. "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." – Seneca

2. "The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are." – Mother Teresa

3. "As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness." – Henry David Thoreau

4. "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

5. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." – Leonardo da Vinci

Quotes on Humility and Ego

1. "Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars." – Serbian proverb

2. "Those who are feared by many, must fear many." – Seneca

3. "It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone." – Marcus Aurelius

Quotes on Continuous Improvement and Growth

1. "As long as you live, keep learning how to live." – Seneca

2. "Throw me to the wolves and I will return leading the pack." – Seneca

3. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." – Friedrich Nietzsche

4. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." – Marcus Aurelius

5. "Difficulty strengthens the mind, as labor does the body." – Seneca

Quotes on Courage and Perseverance

1. "Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." – Seneca

2. "Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future." – Seneca

3. "If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests." – Epictetus

5. "A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials." – Seneca

Quotes on Friendship and Relationships

1. "The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best." – Epictetus

2. "Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve." – Seneca

3. "The man who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive." – Seneca

4. "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." – Epictetus

5. "Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?" – Marcus Aurelius

Quotes on Purpose and Meaning

1. "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. "At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?'" – Marcus Aurelius

3. "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." – Marcus Aurelius

4. "You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire." – Seneca

5. "If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable." – Seneca

Quotes on Mindfulness and Awareness

1. "The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts." – Marcus Aurelius

2. "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." – Marcus Aurelius

3. "You become what you give your attention to." – Epictetus

4. "The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not." – Seneca

5. "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking." – Marcus Aurelius

Quotes on Stoicism and Life

1. "Stoicism is a philosophy for ordinary people, and as a former slave, Epictetus knew adversity firsthand. The essence of his teachings is that we don't control what happens to us; we control how we respond." – Ryan Holiday

2. "Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that focuses our attention on what is possible and gives us perspective on what is unimportant." – Ryan Holiday

3. "Stoicism teaches us that we can't control or rely on anything outside what Epictetus called our 'reasoned choice' - our ability to use our reason to choose how we categorize, respond, and reorient ourselves to external events." – Ryan Holiday

4. "Stoicism is a tool in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom: something one uses to live a great life, rather than some esoteric field of academic inquiry." – Ryan Holiday

5. "Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

6. "Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions." – Wikipedia

7. "Stoicism is, as much as anything, a philosophy of gratitude - and a gratitude, moreover, rugged enough to endure anything." – Robert Brault

8. "Stoicism is a no-nonsense philosophical system designed to produce dramatic, concrete effects in individual lives." – William B. Irvine

9. "Stoicism is a practical philosophy. It's built for action, not endless debate." – Ryan Holiday

10. "Stoicism is a tool set for the art of living." – Ryan Holiday

By studying and applying the wisdom of these Stoic quotes, we can develop the mental resilience, self-discipline, and clarity of thought to navigate life's challenges and live with greater purpose and peace of mind. The principles of Stoicism are just as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago, providing a timeless guide for anyone seeking to live a good life.