Quotes I've found interesting

You stand as you always have.  A good man does what he must.

Kore,   Spartacus, s04e10

Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self-respect springs.

Joan Didion,   Slouching Towards Bethlehem

If you’re going a thousand miles an hour, if you see everything as a problem to be solved, what kind of life is that? Especially in a world where time once past can never be recovered, where everything is so fleeting, it’s a terrible shame to waste it.

Ryan Holiday,   Daily Stoic Email, 3/31/2022

Burnout isn't the number of hours you work. It's too much effort on things that are against your core interests and values.

Sarah Drasner,   Twitter

To Marcus the true measure of his wealth was that whenever he saw someone in need of help, he could provide it. Moreover, that wealth afforded him a unique luxury: he would never have to ask for such a favor in return.

Ryan Holiday,   Daily Stoic Email, 11/19/2021

If you’ve lost your job, if you went through a painful breakup, if you’ve been forced to start over, if your sandcastle or your ship has been swallowed up—congratulations, you’ve been gifted a remarkable opportunity. You get to choose the life you want to build. Well done, Fortune, to drive you thus to the life you’ve always wanted.

Ryan Holiday,   Daily Stoic Email, 8/10/2021

Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.

Marguerite Yourcenar,   Memoirs of Hadrian

A very small part of an historical piece of fiction I stumbled upon: the hero goes through a prison. He crosses path with a very secondary character locked behind bars that say to him: "Hero, I envy you to go on adventures while I rot here in prison with a life sentence. I deserved it but now my life is useless, I'll spend it here in this small cell, there's no point to it." Poor man. He can't have a family, accumulate wealth or be useful to his community. The hero then tranquillises him: "Don't worry friend, because even in prison you can still practice and live a virtuous life."

@aka457,   Reddit

No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.

Marcus Aurelius  

We are all victims of our lives, and we cannot change what we do in the aftermath; we can only try to make up for it. Nor can we change the minds of all those who have come to see us as they wrongly believe us to be. Some can never forget. Some beliefs are fixed in stone.

Terry Brooks,   The Last Druid