Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
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Self-Mastery
Command of the inner life — the printable core of the collection.
It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control.
If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it.
The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.
Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.
That which is not good for the hive cannot be good for the bees.
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
Men are disturbed not by events, but by their opinions about events.
It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
Character is destiny.
The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
He merits praise who does what he ought to do, not what he is allowed to do.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong.
One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.
If your abilities are only mediocre, modesty is mere honesty; but if you possess great talents, it is hypocrisy.
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
No man ought to expect much from others, or, in general, from the external world. What one human being can be to another is not a very great deal: in the end everyone stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
Compassion is the basis of morality.
Mature manhood: that means to have rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.
There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena.
The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
What does your conscience say? — You shall become the person you are.
I live in my own place, have never copied nobody even half, and at any master who lacks the grace to laugh at himself — I laugh.
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
People only see what they are prepared to see.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
I love to be alone. I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
There are three sorts of people: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those who move.
Never ruin an apology with an excuse.
If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.
Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.
Well done is better than well said.
The world is run by the people who show up.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.
I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
People in those old times had convictions; we moderns only have opinions. And it needs more than a mere opinion to erect a Gothic cathedral.
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
We confess our little faults only to persuade others that we have no great ones.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
This above all: to thine own self be true.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
Men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for everyone can see, but few can feel.
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that is unlocked and opens inwards, as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
A strong nature feels itself brought into the world for its own development and not for the approbation of the public.
The amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do.
Easy mind, light heart. A mind that is too easy hides a heart that is too heavy.