The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...
-- Epictetus, Discourses, 2.4.4-5
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report -- the report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick -- but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions, and don't add to them in your head -- this way nothing can happen to you.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.49
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that's in your power. Don't look around to see if people will know about it. Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.29.(4)
As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be -- it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be.
-- Saul Alinksy in Rules for Radicals
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties -- hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.
-- Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 10.4b
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
You must stop blaming God, and not blame any person. You must completely control your desire and shift your avoidance to what lies within your reasoned choice. You must no longer feel anger, resentment, envy or regret.
-- Epictetus, Discourses, 3.22.13
