You have power over your mind, not outside events.
Realize this, and you will find strength.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
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.
It is not death that a man should fear,
but he should fear never beginning to live.
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.
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it.
If you have to, with the same weapons of reason,
which today arm you against the present.
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
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?
If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right,
I will happily change, for I seek the truth,
by which no one was ever truly harmed.
It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.
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 opinion of himself,
than on the opinion of others.
If it is not right, do not do it.
If it is not true, do not say it.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Very little is needed to make a happy life.
It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.
When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms,
go to their souls, penetrate inside, and see what sort of people they are.
You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety
that they should hold any particular opinion about you.
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.
Here is a rule to remember in the future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter,
not, this is misfortune, but, to bear this worthily is good fortune.
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.
Begin each day by telling yourself,
today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude,
insolence, disloyalty, ill will, and selfishness,
all of them due to the offender's ignorance of what is good or evil.
Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.
Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have,
not but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess,
and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.
Perfection of character is this, to live each day as if it were your last,
without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.
Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell,
and you can foresee the future too.
It is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.
Your days are numbered.
Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun.
If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.
The universe is changing.
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.
A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word,
or lose your self-respect.
It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire.
Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind,
the realm of your own.
If any man despises me, that is his problem.
My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.
Look inward.
Don't let the true nature of anything elude you.
Before long, all existing things will be transformed,
to rise like smoke, or be dispersed in fragments.
The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.
A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.
How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything that happens in life.
It never ceases to amaze me.
We all love ourselves more than other people,
but care more about their opinion than our own.
Life is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil.
Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.
If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action,
I shall gladly change.
I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone.
The harm is to persist in one's self-deception and ignorance.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Therefore, guard accordingly,
and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.
Do not act as if you had 10,000 years to throw away.
Death stands at your elbow.
Be good for something while you live, and it is in your power.
Accept whatever comes to you had woven in the pattern of your destiny,
for what could more aptly fit your needs?
Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again, wake up.
Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you,
view this reality as you view your dreams.
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Whoever does wrong, wrongs himself.
Whoever does injustice, does it to himself,
making himself evil.
The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others.
The happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control.
But the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.
If you are pained by external things,
it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them.
And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.