6 Stoic Quotes on Control & Acceptance

  • Let Fate find us ready and alert. Here is your great soul—the man who has given himself over to Fate; on the other hand, that man is a weakling and a degenerate who struggles and maligns the order of the universe and would rather reform the gods than reform himself.

    — Seneca, Letter 107.12

  • Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our actions.

    — Epictetus, Enchiridion 1.1

  • The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 4.4

  • Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.

    — Epictetus, Enchiridion 8

  • Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.175

  • Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 107.11