Top 100 Stoic Philosophy Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Your task is to stand straight; not to be held straight.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Philosophy Quotes, Character Quotes

2. “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Learning Quotes, Intelligent Quotes

3. “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Short Quotes

4. “Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Meaning Quotes, Perspective Quotes

5. “To live a life of virtue, match up your thoughts, words, and deeds.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Morality Quotes, Intention Quotes, Virtue Quotes

6. “Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Acceptance Quotes, Freedom Quotes

7. “Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Morality Quotes

8. “Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance – now, at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Meaningful Quotes, Life Philosophy Quotes, Mind Quotes, Intelligent Quotes

9. “Learn to distinguish what you can and can’t control. Within our control are our own opinions, aspirations, desires and the things that repel us. They are directly subject to our influence.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Accountability Quotes, Mental Strength Quotes, Quotes for Better Decisions, Desire Quotes

10. “It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous – even death is terrible only if we fear it.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Inner Peace Quotes, Mental Strength Quotes, Epic Quotes, Suffering Quotes

11. “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control. Stop aspiring to be anyone other than your own best self: for that does fall within your control.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Freedom Quotes

12. “Don’t demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Acceptance Quotes, Contentment Quotes, Expectations Quotes

13. “Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power.”

— Epictetus

14. “It is not things in themselves which trouble us, but our opinions of things.”

— Epictetus

15. “Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Intention Quotes, Resilience Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Self Control Quotes

16. “We can’t control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Reputation Quotes

17. “What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Mental Strength Quotes, Obstacles Quotes, Challenges Quotes, Adversity Quotes

18. “You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don’t be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes for Students, Duty Quotes

19. “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.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Happy Quotes, Quotes About Thinking, Mind Quotes, Philosophy Quotes

20. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Integrity Quotes, Time Quotes, Action Quotes

21. “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.”

— Marcus Aurelius

22. “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes, Happiness Quotes, Positivity Quotes, Wellness Quotes

23. “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

Also featured in: Wisdom Quotes, Intelligent Quotes, Wise Quotes, Character Quotes

24. “Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Discipline Quotes, Learning Quotes, Short Motivational Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Success

25. “The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

— Ryan Holiday

Also featured in: Empowering Quotes, Opportunity Quotes, Obstacles Quotes, Resilience Quotes, Challenges Quotes

26. “Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Short Quotes About Life, Adversity Quotes

27. “Think of what you have rather than of what you lack. Of the things you have, select the best and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Attitude Quotes, Good Morning Inspirational Quotes, Contentment Quotes, Intelligent Quotes

28. “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Action Quotes, Wisdom Quotes, Mindset Quotes, Obstacles Quotes

29. “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.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Mental Strength Quotes, Mind Quotes, Wise Quotes, Thought Provoking Quotes

30. “It is quality rather than quantity that matters.”

— Seneca

Also featured in: Short Motivational Quotes, Short Quotes About Life, Excellence Quotes

31. “Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Time Quotes, Interesting Quotes, Quality Quotes

32. “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Quotes About Strength, Empowerment Quotes, Resilience Quotes, Character Quotes

33. “Discard everything except these few truths: we can live only in the present moment, in this brief now; all the rest of our life is dead and buried or shrouded in uncertainty. Short is the life we lead, and small our patch of earth.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Time Quotes, Live Life Quotes, Reflection Quotes

34. “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

Also featured in: Time Quotes, Strong Quotes, Time Flies Quotes

35. “No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity.”

— Seneca

36. “Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.”

— Seneca

Also featured in: Wealth Quotes

37. “The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Not Giving Up Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Encouraging Quotes, Uplifting Quotes

38. “He who pays no attention to what his neighbor does, says or thinks, preferring to concentrate on making his own actions appropriate and justifiable, better uses his time.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Focus On Yourself Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes

39. “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Focus Quotes, Quotes About Strength, Mind Quotes, Philosophical Quotes

40. “Be content to seem what you really are.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Integrity Quotes, Be Yourself Quotes, Contentment Quotes, Virtue Quotes

41. “Find joy in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. Follow the divine.”

— Marcus Aurelius

42. “Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Destiny Quotes, Everything Happens For A Reason Quotes

43. “You are a little soul carrying about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Soul Quotes, Meditation Quotes

44. “When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance revert at once to yourself and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better grasp of harmony if you keep going back to it.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Helping Quotes, Adversity Quotes

45. “It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Willpower Quotes

46. “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.”

— Seneca the Younger

Also featured in: Transformation Quotes, Peace of Mind Quotes, Different Quotes

47. “Spend your brief moment according to nature’s law, and serenely greet the journey’s end as an olive falls when it is ripe, blessing the branch that bare it, and giving thanks to the tree that gave it life.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Acceptance Quotes, Deep Quotes, Life Is Short Quotes

48. “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Positive Quotes, Happy Quotes, Perspective Quotes, Life Philosophy Quotes

49. “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Attitude Quotes, Life Lessons Quotes, Perspective Quotes, Wisdom Quotes, Philosophical Quotes

50. “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”

— Epictetus

Also featured in: Live Life Quotes, Personal Responsibility Quotes, Being Yourself Quotes, Quotes About Acting