Where is anything better?

Indeed, if you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, courage -- in short, anything better than the sufficiency of your own mind, which keeps you acting according to the demands of true reason and accepting what fate gives you outside of your own power of choice -- I tell you, if you can see anything better than this, turn to it heart and soul and take full advantage of this great good you've found.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.6.1 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Learn, Practice, Train, Apply, Teach

That's why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.

-- Epictetus, Discourses, 2.9.13-14 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Seven functions of the mind

The proper work of the mind is the exercise of choice, refusal, yearning, replusion, preparation, purpose, and assent. What then can pollute and clog the mind's proper functioning? Nothing but its own corrupt decisions.

-- Epictetus, Discourses, 4.11.6-7 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

No one said it'd be easy

Good people will do what they find honorable to do, even if it requires hard work; they'll do it even if causes them injury; they'll do it even if it will bring danger. Again, they won't do what they find base, even if it brings wealth, pleasure or power. Nothing will deter them from what is honorable, and nothing will lure them into what is base.

-- Seneca, Moral Letters, 76.18 

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

Made for working together

Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you've been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it's our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.

-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.12

* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman