The past is always part of history. Yours will be your great story to share in the future. What happened to you before might have left a mark in your life that you’ll never forget. However, you can never change the past to get rid of your regrets. But you can always change how it’ll end by the chance you have today. Hence, focus on what you have now to create what you’ll receive tomorrow. To inspire you more to be optimistic, read this list of stoic quotes to focus on today below.
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” -Plutarch
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” -Abraham Lincoln
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.” — Marcus Aurelius
“I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived – and dying I will tend to later.” -Epictetus
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” -Marcus Aurelius
“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” -Epictetus
“Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.” -Marcus Aurelius
“If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.” -Marcus Aurelius
“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.” -Seneca
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.” -Seneca
Letting go of the past can never be easy, but it might be your only way to move on. You only have two choices. You can stay in the past or leave and enter the future. To give you more motivation to choose the latter, continue reading some stoic quotes to focus on today below.
“No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” -Epictetus
“He who fears death will never do anything worth of a man who is alive.” -Seneca
“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.” -Marcus Aurelius
“Things stand outside of us, themselves by themselves, neither knowing anything of themselves nor expressing any judgment.” -Marcus Aurelius
“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.” -Marcus Aurelius
“Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.” -Seneca
“It is like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage [wine] is rotted grapes… perceptions like that… latching onto things and piercing through them, to see what they really are… to strip away the legend that encrusts them.” -Marcus Aurelius
“We should always be asking ourselves: “Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?” -Epictetus
“Define for me now what the “indifferents” are. Whatever things we cannot control. Tell me the upshot. They are nothing to me.” -Epictetus
“It’s something like going on an ocean voyage. What can I do? Pick the captain, the boat, the date, and the best time to sail. But then a storm hits… What are my options? I do the only thing I am in a position to do, drown — but fearlessly, without bawling or crying out to God, because I know that what is born must also die.” -Epictetus
You might have been hiding behind the shadow of the past for so long. Now is the time to leave that awful place and follow your hearts’ lead in the right direction. To lead you to it, continue reading the stoic quotes to focus on today below.
“Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.” -Seneca
“Take a lyre player: he’s relaxed when he performs alone, but put him in front of an audience, and it’s a different story, no matter how beautiful his voice or how well he plays the instrument. Why? Because he not only wants to perform well, he wants to be well received — and the latter lies outside his control.” -Epictetus
“Let us meet with bravery whatever may befall us. Let us never feel a shudder at the thought of being wounded or of being made a prisoner, or of poverty or persecution.” -Seneca
“Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another. These are conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good person, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature’s.” -Seneca
“Cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.” -Seneca
“Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together.” -Marcus Aurelius
“Plato has a fine saying, that he who would discourse of man should survey, as from some high watchtower, the things of earth.” -Marcus Aurelius
“Remember: Matter. How tiny your share of it. Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it. Fate. How small a role you play in it.” -Marcus Aurelius
“You can discard most of the junk that clutters your mind…and clear out space for yourself… by comprehending the scale of the world… by contemplating infinite time… by thinking of the speed with which things change — each part of everything; the narrow space between our birth and death; the infinite time before; the equally unbounded time that follows. -Marcus Aurelius
“Asia and Europe: distant recesses of the universe. The ocean: a drop of water. Mount Athos: a molehill. The present: a split second in eternity. Minuscule, transitory, insignificant.” -Marcus Aurelius
THESE ARE THE TOP 30 STOIC QUOTES TO FOCUS ON TODAY. WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE? VISIT OUR CHANNEL ENDLESS AWESOME TO WATCH MORE QUOTES LIKE THIS!
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