8 Stoic Quotes on The Present Moment

  • "Objective judgement, now, at this very moment. Unselfish action, now, at this very moment. Willing acceptance - now, at this very moment - of all external events. That's all you need" — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.6

  • "Confine yourself to the present." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.29

  • "The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty." — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 9.1

  • "Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.1

  • "Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at." — Seneca, Moral Letters 108.27

  • "The present alone can make no man wretched." — Seneca, Moral Letters 5

  • "The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.14

  • "But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future." — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 16.1