We are at the mercy of whoever wields authority over the things we either desire or detest. If you would be free, then, do not wish to have, or avoid, things that other people control, because then you must serve as their slave.
It’s the pursuit of these things, and your attempts to avoid them, that leave you in such turmoil. And yet they aren’t seeking you out; you are the one seeking them. Suspend judgment about them. And at once they will lie still, and you will be freed from fleeing and pursuing.
If I cherish my body, I make a slave of myself, if I cherish my property, I make a slave of myself; because I’ve disclosed the means to make me captive. When a snake pulls back its head, right away I think, ‘Hit it just there, on the part that it’s protecting.’ In the same way you may be sure that whatever you are seen to protect, that will become your enemy’s focus of attack.
If one accomplishes some good though with toil, the toil passes, but the good remains; if one does something dishonorable with pleasure, the pleasure passes, but the dishonor remains.
Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.
Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day – especially death – and you will never have an abject thought, or desire anything to excess.
If you wish to make Pythocles an old man, filling his life to the full, do not add to his years, but subtract from his desires.
Destroy desire completely for the present. For if you desire anything which is not in our power, you must be unfortunate.
For it is better to die of hunger and so to be released from grief and fear than to live in abundance with perturbation.