Stoicism Today Quotes

“Stoicism is about Joy, Serenity, Meaning and Purpose. It is about being a useful and important member of society.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Virtue is a form or expertise or skill, the knowledge of how to live well in every way which shapes the whole personality. Virtue is analysed in terms of four generic or cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, self-control or moderation, and justice, seen either as four aspects of a single form of knowledge or as interdependent.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings, Volume II

“Every hour focus your mind attentively...on the performance of the task in hand, with dignity, human sympathy, benevolence and freedom, and leave aside all other thoughts. You will achieve this, if you perform each action as if it were your last...’ Meditations, 2.5”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“1. You should not spend time worrying about things you cannot control. 2. The most important thing in life is to live virtuously. 3. You should try to excel at any role you may have.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Emotions: our emotions are the project of our judgements, of thinking that something good or bad is happening or is about to happen. Many of our negative emotions are based on mistaken judgements, but because they are due to our judgements it means they are within our control. Change the judgements and you change the emotions. Despite the popular image, the Stoic does not repress or deny his emotions; instead he simply aims not to have negative emotions in the first place. The aim, therefore, is to overcome harmful, negative emotions that are based on mistaken judgments while embracing correct positive emotions, replacing anger with joy.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Stoicism was one of the four principal schools of philosophy in ancient Athens, alongside Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum, and Epicurus’s Garden, where it flourished for some 250 years. It proved especially popular among the Romans, attracting admirers as diverse as the statesman Seneca, the ex-slave Epictetus, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“anyone who looks for happiness from external events is destined to be unhappy much of the time.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself. PUBLIUS SYRUS”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“sino en hacer un buen uso ético del presente.”
― Patrick Ussher, El Estoicismo Hoy, Escritos Selectos, Volumen I

“cada acto de tu vida como si fuese el último de tu existencia...”
― Patrick Ussher, El Estoicismo Hoy, Escritos Selectos, Volumen I

“ser capaz de comprender el universo en que vivimos, y ser más respetuoso con él.”
― Patrick Ussher, El Estoicismo Hoy, Escritos Selectos, Volumen I

“Whenever, as the sun rises, you feel unwilling to get up, have this thought ready to hand: “I rise to do the work of a human being” Why feel any resentment, when I am rising to do that for which I was born, for which I was brought into the world? Or was I made instead just to lie under these bedclothes, all warm and comfortable? “Well it is pleasurable to do so!” But were you born for pleasure? Look at it this way: were you born for passivity or to be a man of action? Can you not see that even the shrubs, sparrows, ants, spiders and bees all do their bit, their part in making up the smooth functioning of the universe? So why don’t you do your bit too, and perform the role of a human being?’ Meditations 5.1.,”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“virtue is not something that one merely has, but is something that must be done. In order to have virtue, we must be virtuous; we must be courageous in the face of challenges, we must be just in the distribution of goods and rights, we must be temperate in our dealings as well as our acquisitions, and most of all we must be wise in our choices of action.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“concebían la “felicidad” de otra forma. Para ellos, una clave para la felicidad era la tranquilidad, es decir, un estado de moderación, libre de emociones negativas.”
― Patrick Ussher, El Estoicismo Hoy, Escritos Selectos, Volumen I

“Remind yourself that it is not things that upset you but your judgements about things.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“what Marcus has in mind is getting to the ethical core of the situation (although, as becomes clear, this is also linked with understanding the natural world better). The ‘stripping’ method assumes the first of the key Stoic themes noted earlier: that our happiness depends solely on responding virtuously to situations and not at all on acquiring material or social advantages. Hence, what the method brings out is what virtues we should aim to express in that context (‘what virtue is needed ... such as gentleness, courage, truthfulness, good faith, simplicity, self-sufficiency’). The”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“human beings have an in-built natural inclination to benefit others. This inclination, if properly developed, is expressed both in full-hearted engagement with family and communal roles and in a readiness to accept all human beings, as such, as part of a ‘brotherhood’ or ‘cosmic city’ and as proper objects of ethical concern. These”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“the Stoics suggest we ought to live in harmony with Nature. Part of what they mean by this is that we ought to acknowledge that we are but small parts of a larger, organic whole, shaped by larger processes that are ultimately out of our control. There is nothing to be gained from trying to resist these larger processes except anger, frustration, and disappointment. While there are many things in the world that we can change, there are many others we cannot and we need to understand this and accept it.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself. PUBLIUS SYRUS When”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“the first of the key Stoic themes noted earlier: that our happiness depends solely on responding virtuously to situations and not at all on acquiring material or social advantages.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Stoic cosmopolitanism developed the metaphor of the human race as a ‘body’: as all the limbs contribute to the health of our body, so too does each human, like a limb, contribute to the body of humanity. The task for the Stoic, then, is to live out an aspiration to contribute to the common good, and for our belief-sets to be based on the implications of understanding oneself as a civis mundi, or ‘citizen of the world’.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Control: in the light of what we have seen, there are some things we have control over (our judgements, our own mental state) and some things that we do not (external processes and objects). Much of our unhappiness is caused by confusing these two categories: thinking we have control over something that ultimately we do not. Happily the one thing we do have control over is the only thing that can guarantee a good, happy life.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Nature: the Stoics suggest we ought to live in harmony with Nature. Part of what they mean by this is that we ought to acknowledge that we are but small parts of a larger, organic whole, shaped by larger processes that are ultimately out of our control. There is nothing to be gained from trying to resist these larger processes except anger, frustration, and disappointment. While there are many things in the world that we can change, there are many others we cannot and we need to understand this and accept it.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“People are not disturbed by events but by their opinions about events”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Because we are disturbed not by things but by the interpretations our minds put on things, by the views we take of things.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Obstacles make us emotional, but the only way we’ll survive or overcome them is by keeping those emotions in check—if we can keep steady no matter what happens, no matter how much external events may fluctuate. The Greeks had a word for this: apatheia. It’s the kind of calm equanimity that comes with the absence of irrational or extreme emotions. Not the loss of feeling altogether, just the loss of the harmful, unhelpful kind. Don’t let the negativity in, don’t let those emotions even get started. Just say: No, thank you. I can’t afford to panic. This is the skill that must be cultivated—freedom from disturbance and perturbation. So you can focus your energy exclusively on solving problems, rather than reacting to them.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Value: the only thing that is truly good is an excellent mental state, identified with virtue and reason. This is the only thing that can guarantee our happiness. External things such as money, success, fame and the like can never bring us happiness. Although there is nothing wrong with these things and they do hold value and may well form part of a good life, often the pursuit of these things actually damages the only thing that can bring us happiness: an excellent, rational mental state.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Stoics want us to practise fortitude in the face of blows of fate; they want us to develop self-control especially over destructive and negative emotions; they want us to improve our moral and spiritual wellbeing; they want us to align our lives with the divine logos permeating all of creation. They want us to be passionately and joyfully peaceful, as well as wise, courageous, disciplined and just. They want us to examine our lives and practise daily disciplines - spiritual exercises - which will become habits of the heart to help us here and now. They want us to be indifferent to indifferent things and to concentrate on what we can control and what we can choose, and to let go of the things we can’t. They want us to love in harmony and be in a state of happiness, to help each other and live in love. Because we are disturbed not by things but by the interpretations our minds put on things, by the views we take of things. And aren’t these ideals worth pursuing, worth having, worth being? In short, they want us to live more meaningfully and less mindlessly.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Give me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The Courage to change the things I can, And the Wisdom to know the difference.”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings

“Value: the only thing that is truly good is an excellent mental state, identified with virtue and reason. This is the only thing that can guarantee our happiness. External things such as money, success, fame and the like can never bring us happiness. Although there is nothing wrong”
― Patrick Ussher, Stoicism Today: Selected Writings