Stoic quotes on hardship, adversity, and amor fati

To leave this life, if there are gods, is nothing to fear — they will not involve you in evil. If gods do not exist or do not care, what is it to live without gods or providence?

What unrest can Chance bring with its shifting moods, if you stand firm against what is unsure? So begin to live at once, dear Lucilius — and reckon each new day as a separate life.

Two things to keep in mind. All things from eternity repeat in like forms — a hundred years sees nothing new. And the longest-lived and the soonest to die both lose just the same.

Consider the man who says, 'I will buy, build, lend, collect, earn honours, then in old age give myself to ease.' All such things are uncertain, even for the fortunate. None of us holds a claim on the days ahead.

Does any man hinder me from going with smiles, with cheerfulness, with contentment? You will put me in chains? Me, in chains? You may fetter my leg, but not even Zeus himself can overpower my will.

What remains peculiar to the good person: to be content with what happens, and with the thread spun for them. Not to defile the divinity planted in their breast, but to preserve it tranquil, saying nothing contrary to truth.

What we grip slips away; chance breaks into the very hour we have crammed with plans. Time moves by its own law, yet in darkness — what good is Nature's certainty when my course is not?

I do the only thing I can: not drown in fear, nor scream, nor blame God. What has been produced must perish. I am a man, a part of the whole, as an hour is part of the day.

Such a person is like a priest of the gods: uncontaminated by pleasure, unharmed by pain, untouched by insult, a fighter in the noblest fight, dyed deep with justice, accepting with all his soul everything assigned as his portion.

The very day you dread as the close of everything is the dawn of your eternity. Why hold back? Set down your burden — you have already left this hiding-place of flesh once before.

Keep what is your own. Do not claim what belongs to others. Use what is given. When something is taken away, give it up readily and be thankful for the time you had it.

The ruling mind requires no fixed material. It makes material from what opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls in. What would extinguish a small flame feeds the strong fire and makes it rise higher.

Treat anything that brings you pleasure as a plant in flower. Take its leaves while they last — each kind has its own falling-time, and all fall in due season.

Every habit is maintained by its matching action. Walking by walking, running by running. Want to read well, then read. Stop for thirty days and see what happens.

Whatever harmonizes with you is in harmony with me. Nothing for me is too early or too late. Everything your seasons bring is fruit to me. From you all things come, and to you all things return.

Whoever has long readied himself for a danger faces it boldly; whoever has practised hardship endures it. The unready, by contrast, panic at the smallest trouble. Take care that nothing reaches you by surprise.

He bore the condemnation bravely. That is within the will. That is a good. Your son is dead. What has happened? Your son is dead. Nothing more. The rest is your own addition.

All these things you see are changing right now and will soon no longer be. Bear in mind how many of these changes you have already witnessed. All of existence is transformation. Life is opinion.

Our souls must shape themselves to this law — to follow it, to obey it. Whatever befalls you, take it as something that had to fall. Spare yourself the urge to rage against Nature.

God says: prove you have trained properly, obeyed your trainer, eaten as you ought. Then do you show yourself weak when the time comes? Now is the fever. Let it be borne well.

Think how many physicians are dead after frowning over the sick, how many philosophers after endless talk of death, how many heroes after killing thousands, how many tyrants after wielding power as if immortal.