9 Stoic Quotes on Motivation & Drive

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

    — Epictetus, Discourses 3.23

  • The man who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since we gain every good by toil.

    — Musonius Rufus, Discourses 7

  • Don't put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 1.4.17

  • If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 2.18

  • Make it your goal never to fail in your desires or experience things you would rather avoid; try never to err in impulse and repulsion; aim to be perfect also in the practice of attention and withholding judgment.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 1.4.11

  • Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad.

    — Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 12.5

  • I cannot call somebody ‘hard-working’ knowing only that they read and write. Even if ‘all night long’ is added, I cannot say it – not until I know the focus of all this energy.

    — Epictetus, Discourses 4.4.41

  • It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

    — Seneca, Moral Letters 104.26

  • The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

    — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20