We’re all impacted by the coronavirus, even if we don’t have it ourselves. It is impacting the stock market, jobs, lives, everything related to our species.
We often can’t control what happens to us, the Buddha said that life is suffering, but we can choose how we respond to what happens to us.
Below are 20 Stoic related quotes, reminders to Stoic practitioners to focus on what’s in our control.
Stay safe. Stay clean. Spread love.
1) “When a situation is within your control, take action. When a situation is outside your control, make preparations.”
James Clear2) “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”
Epictetus3) “Nothing external to you has any power over you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson4) “Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb5) “The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.”
Epictetus6) “Your main target should be to find and develop your own unique individuality and not let your focus be sidetracked and drift to external things”
Sunday Adelaja7) “Peace is more of an internal settlement rather than what is visible on the external.”
Criss Jami8) “When most people set out to change their lives, they often focus on all the external stuff, like a new job or a new location or new friends or a new romantic prospects and on and on. The reality is that changing your life starts with changing the way you see everything in your life.”
Mark Manson9) “A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
Taoist proverb10) “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
Yoda11) “The human being is a self-propelled automaton entirely under the control of external influences. Willful and predetermined though they appear, his actions are governed not from within, but from without. He is like a float tossed about by the waves of a turbulent sea.”
Nikola Tesla12) “Stoicism is not a matter of gritting your teeth. It’s about seeing things differently so that you do not need to grit your teeth.”
Richard Sorabji13) “The pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man…It is more powerful than external circumstances.”
Seneca14) “The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason.”
Marya Mannes15) “The fools are preoccupied by things they can’t control. That’s why they are tense. The wise are indifferent to things they can’t control. That’s why they are calm.”
Maxime Lagacé16) “I am inclined to think that the power of wisdom is better shown by a display of calmness in the midst of provocation.”
Seneca17) “A man’s most urgent necessity is neither happiness or money. It is wisdom. For it is wisdom that he will need to navigate the turbulent waters of his day to day existence without succumbing to the ocean of turmoils or to the empty road of prescriptions.”
Kapil Gupta18) “The wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win.”
Zhuge Liang19) “Happiness is what people seek. Reality is what hits them. Disappointment is what they get. Detachment is what they need.”
Maxime Lagacé20) “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
Steve Jobs
With Ken Thompson 