More Than Happiness Quotes

“On the question of speaking, Stoics and Buddhists are at one. In Epictetus’ words: ‘Be mostly silent, or speak merely when necessary, and in few words. We may enter sparingly into conversation sometimes, when the occasion calls for it; but not about any of the common subjects, such as gladiators, or horse races, or athletic champions, or food, or drink – the vulgar topics of conversation; and especially not about individuals, either to blame, or praise, or make comparisons.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Could we react as Seneca tried to do? ‘I force my mind to pay attention to itself and not to be distracted by anything external. It does not matter what is making a noise outside, so long as there is no turmoil inside – as long as there is no wrangling between desire and fear, as long as greed is not at odds with self-indulgence, one carping at the other. … Only as the mind develops into excellence do we achieve any real tranquillity.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“When planning for the future, it might be useful to follow the Stoics’ suggestion of adding to our intention a tag like ‘if nothing prevents’ – a secular version of ‘God willing”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Thinking more generally about how things seem to others allows us to see their points of view better and to become more understanding. Marcus also writes that: ‘To feel affection for people even when they make mistakes is uniquely human. You can do it, if you simply recognize: that they’re human too, that they act out of ignorance … and that you’ll both be dead before long. And, above all, that they haven’t really hurt you. They haven’t diminished your ability to choose.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“The advice to simplify our lives brings to mind William Morris’ dictum that we should have nothing in our houses that we don’t know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. More recently, Marie Kondo has suggested that unless an object ‘sparks joy’ in our heart, we should get rid of it.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Chrysippus’ questions might be useful. He asked: ‘Is there good or bad at hand? Is it appropriate to react?’ This could be supplemented with a few more, producing a kind of Chrysippan flowchart:”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“One of the most quoted Stoic sayings must surely be Epictetus’ (which we first encountered on p. 39): ‘People are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of things.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Seneca has a wealth of such reminders: ‘Everything is dangerous and deceptive and more changeable than the weather; everything tumbles about and passes at fortune’s behest into its opposite; and in all this tumult of human affairs there is nothing we can be sure of except death alone.’ Since there is ‘no way to know the point where death lies waiting for you, … you must wait for death at every point’.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“In this way we will be reminded of their true nature and come to a more ‘objective’ judgement. It is, Marcus says, like: ‘seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love – something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“The goal is not removing or promoting any particular mental state: it is to be able to live a rich life regardless of how we may be feeling at any particular time.39 This is explained through similes and practical exercises. In the ‘passengers on the bus’ metaphor, for instance, thoughts are compared to a bunch of critical and abusive passengers on a bus you’re driving. You’re in charge of the bus, though, so you can let the passengers shout as much as they like: that doesn’t stop you heading towards your valued destination.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“If you are dazzled by the appearance of a promised pleasure, guard yourself against being carried away by it; but let the matter wait, and allow yourself some delay. Then bring to mind both points of time: that in which you will enjoy the pleasure, and that in which you will repent and reproach yourself after you have enjoyed it; and set before you, in opposition to these, how you will rejoice and praise yourself if you abstain.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Marcus Aurelius writes: ‘The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Epictetus has this to say about the role of habits: ‘Generally then, if you want to make something a habit, practise it; and if you do not want to make it a habit, do not do it, but get in the habit of doing something else. It is the same in relation to things of the mind.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Musonius Rufus writes that the soul is strengthened by first reminding ourselves of the right perspectives and then moulding our actions to this understanding, so that we stop pursuing things that are not truly good and stop avoiding things that only seem bad. In this way, we ‘won’t welcome pleasure and avoid pain … won’t love living and fear death, and … in the case of money, [we] won’t honor receiving over giving.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Seneca says: ‘if we are situated in the midst of a noisy city, let there be a preceptor at our side to contradict those who laud vast incomes and to praise instead the man who is wealthy on little and who measures wealth by how it is used.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“According to Seneca: ‘Turning pale, shedding tears, the first stirrings of sexual arousal, a deep sigh, a suddenly sharpened glance, anything along these lines: whoever reckons them a clear token of passion and a sign of the mind’s engagement is just mistaken and fails to understand that they’re involuntary bodily movements.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Taking our knowledge to heart and really living it, however, can be difficult, as Seneca illustrated with a literally colourful analogy: ‘Just as some dyes are readily absorbed by the wool, others only after repeated soaking and simmering, so there are some studies that show up well in our minds as soon as we have learned them; this one, though, must permeate us thoroughly. It must soak in, giving not just a tinge of color but a real deep dye, or it cannot deliver on any of its promises.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Epictetus, for instance, challenged the idea that we improve solely by reading books and acquiring knowledge. Instead, we should demonstrate that the knowledge has really sunk in: ‘A builder does not come and say, “Listen to me talking on the art of building”, … but undertakes to build a house and proves by building it that he knows the art.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Also, we need to help ourselves before we can benefit others: ‘that one who is himself sinking in the mud should pull out another who is sinking in the mud is impossible; that one who is not himself sinking in the mud should pull out another who is sinking in the mud is possible’, says the Buddha.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“One discourse celebrates detachment with the image of a rhinoceros: ‘One whose mind is enmeshed in sympathy for friends and companions, neglects the true goal. Seeing this danger in intimacy, wander alone like a rhinoceros. … As a deer in the wilds, unfettered, goes for forage wherever it wants: the wise person, valuing freedom, wanders alone like a rhinoceros.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Knowledge of precepts and understanding appropriate action can help us to live ethically. But even more important is cultivating what could be called ‘calm emotions’. For the Stoics, these were joy, wishing and caution. These are supposed to be a rational alternative to ordinary kinds of emotions: joy replaces pleasure, wishing replaces desire and caution replaces fear.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“The problem with rules, says Seneca, is that ‘if we give precepts for specific situations, the task will be endless’. Instead, we should be guided by philosophical principles, which are ‘concise and comprehensive’.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“In Buddhism, there are different levels of ethical teachings. The basic rules for good conduct are set out in the precepts. There are five precepts for lay people and rather more for monks. For lay people, the precepts advise refraining from: harming living creatures taking what is not given sexual misconduct false speech taking intoxicants that cause heedlessness”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Epicurus’ advice that: ‘No pleasure is itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Mistaken about good and bad, unwittingly taken in by things that are ultimately harmful for us, we suffer from something akin to a perceptual illusion, only much deeper and more problematic. It’s like the Müller-Lyer illusion: we can’t help experiencing the lines as of different length, even if we know they’re not.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“The Buddha, for his part, talks about the ‘eight worldly conditions’ that ‘keep the world turning around’, and around which the world turns. ‘What eight? Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain’.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Both Buddhism and Stoicism strongly encourage us to cultivate understanding and ethical action through spiritual practice. We may not share their precise views, but they certainly seem correct in their assessment that a good life requires more than positive feelings.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Counterintuitive though it may sound, joy can also arise from properly understanding impermanence. The Buddha says: ‘When, by knowing the impermanence, change, fading away, and cessation of forms, one sees … with proper wisdom that forms … are all impermanent, suffering, and subject to change, joy arises.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“In the Dhammapāda, happiness and unhappiness are said to originate in the mind: ‘Speak or act with a corrupted mind, And suffering follows As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox. … Speak or act with a peaceful mind, And happiness follows Like a never-departing shadow.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age

“Even if reason is not the sole good, however, the Stoics rightly draw our attention to how important it is for flourishing. We should exercise our ability to improve ourselves by managing, rather than eradicating, our emotions. While we can accept some worldly things as good or bad, it would seem wise to take up the suggestion to revise our value system and attribute less importance to superficial things like wealth, success and status. At the same time, we need to accept and find ways of dealing with the vulnerability and impermanence of the things we cherish the most.”
― Antonia Macaro, More Than Happiness: Buddhist and Stoic Wisdom for a Sceptical Age