The Stoic HANDBOOK - College of Stoic Philosophers

from always doing and saying the things which are according to the
Nature of which I am a part.
2.17: Human life is but a point in time, and the substance of it is
constantly changing, and the perceptions are dull, and the composition of
the body is subject to putrefaction, and the soul is a whirl, and fortune is
hard to divine, and fame is a thing devoid of judgment. And, in a word,
everything which belongs to the body is a flowing stream, and what
belongs to the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a
stranger's sojourn, and after fame comes oblivion. What then is that
which is able to guide a man? One thing and only one, philosophy.
Book 3.10: Throw away everything but this: everyone lives only in this
present time, which is an indivisible point, and all the rest of that life is
either in the past or in the future. The time in which everyone lives is
short, and the corner of the earth where one lives is small; and the longest
posthumous fame is brief, and even this is only continued by a succession
of poor human beings who will very soon die, and who don't even know
themselves let alone one who died long ago.
Book 4.3: Why are you discontent? With the evil that men do?
Remember that rational animals exist for one another, that to endure is a
part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily. Consider how many
already – after mutual enmity, suspicion, hatred, and fighting – have been
stretched out dead and reduced to ashes and quiet at last.
4.7: Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is
taken away.
4.40: Constantly regard the universe as one living being having one
substance and one soul. Observe how all things have reference to one
perception, the perception of this one living being, and how all things act
with one movement, and how all things are the cooperating causes of all
things which exist. Observe, too, the continuous spinning of the thread
and the texture of the web.
4.43-4: Time is like a river made up of events in a violent stream. As
soon as the event has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in
its place, and it too is carried away. Everything which happens is as
familiar and well known as the rose in spring and the fruit in summer;
and the same is true for disease and death and calamity and treachery, and
whatever else delights fools – or irritates them.
Book 5.6: One person who has done you a favor will openly claim credit
for it. Another will secretly think of you as being in his debt. A third,
hardly even knows what he has done. He is like a vine which has
produced grapes and seeks for nothing more after it has produced its
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