8 Stoic Quotes on Letting Go

  • Receive without conceit, release without struggle.

    — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.33

  • 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

  • Never say about anything, I have lost it, but only I have given it back.

    — Epictetus, Enchiridion 11

  • 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.

    — Epictetus, Enchiridion 14

  • Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.175

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

    — Epictetus, Discourses 4.4

  • Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 107.11

  • 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.

    — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47