The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
Philosophy
Stoics, existentialists, and older hands on how to live.
136 quotes
We suffer more in imagination than in reality.
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
The time is always right to do what is right.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
What is to give light must endure burning.
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter.
Fall in love with some activity, and do it.
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.
You are capable of more than you know.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Lost time is never found again.
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
While we wait for life, life passes.
He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.
Associate with people who are likely to improve you.
Life is long if you know how to use it.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.
Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
To find yourself, think for yourself.
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
Let him who would move the world first move himself.
The hottest love has the coldest end.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Hope is a waking dream.
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
Invisible threads are the strongest ties.
The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside will never be happy.
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
It belongs to the imperfection of man that he often chooses what is worse because it is easier.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.
Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute; the man who does not ask is a fool for life.
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
Respect yourself and others will respect you.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
To lead people, walk beside them.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.
Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.
Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Learning never exhausts the mind.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
The best way out is always through.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.