9 Stoic Quotes on Morning Routine

  • In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?

    — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1

  • When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.

    — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1

  • Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 101.10

  • Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 2.4

  • First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 3.23

  • They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.

    — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 16.1

  • Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 18.5

  • I never spend a day in idleness; I appropriate even a part of the night for study. I do not allow time for sleep but yield to it when I must, and when my eyes are wearied with waking and ready to fall shut, I keep them at their task.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 8.1

  • The man who looks for the morrow without worrying over it knows a peaceful independence and a happiness beyond all others. Whoever has said, "I have lived" receives a windfall every day he gets up in the morning.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 12.9