Stoic Quotes

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. (Will Durant)
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints. View quote
William James
A stoic of the woods-a man without a tear. View quote
Thomas Campbell
My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by sceptics. View quote
Bertrand Russell
You're a pretty cool customer, huh?" says Agent Hunt. "I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage." Agent Hunt looks like he would like to put his fist through my stoic visage. View quote
Holly Black
From here on out, there's just reality. I think that's what maturity is: a stoic response to endless reality. But then, what do I know? View quote
Carrie Fisher
The stoic husband was the glorious thing. The man had courage, was a sage, 'tis true, And lov'd his country. View quote
Alexander Pope
Athenodorus used to stroke his beard slowly and rhythmically as he talked, and told me once that it was this that made it grow so luxuriantly. He said that invisible seeds of fire streamed off from his fingers, which were food for the hairs. This was a typical Stoic joke at the expense of Epicurean speculative philosophy. View quote
Robert Graves
It's hard to be a man. It's made to be hard and I don't know why. I think it's easier to be a woman. The women's movement has been so successful; the men's movement has never been accepted. I think it's not wanted. I think the expectation that men be stoic and strong is so enormous that finally they decide that this is the attractive way to be. There's more to life than being macho - such an ugly word - which is something that I realized at the age of one. View quote
Morrissey
Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not. (Elizabeth Gilbert)
Friedan: Men had to be supermen: stoic, responsible meal tickets. Dominance is a burden. Most men who are honest will admit that. View quote
Betty Friedan
It is the spirit of Salem-the corrupting influence of Puritanism which in itself is perversion of the Stoic ideal-infecting what remains of a nation which could have set an example to the world. View quote
Michael Moorcock
Great organizers, as much as inevitable slaves, tend to stoic moods: it is difficult to be either master or servant if one is sensitive. View quote
Will Durant
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. View quote
D. H. Lawrence
Can any one doubt that if the noblest saint among the Buddhists, the best Mahometan, the highest Stoic of Athens, the purest and wisest Christian, - Buddha and Menu in India, Confucius in China, Spinoza in Holland, could somewhere meet and converse, - they would all find themselves of one religion, - would find themselves denounced by their own sects, and sustained by these believed adversaries of their sects. View quote
Baruch Spinoza
Methods Used 1. Marxist: You decide you're the vanguard of the proletariat and then you can do whatever you want because history will back you up. 2. Stoic: Stay very calm. 3. Positivist: Yes, I'm positive I want to rob this bank. View quote
Tibor Fischer
I've sat in sushi bars, really fine ones, and I know how hard this guy worked, how proud he is. I know you don't need sauce. I know he doesn't even want you to pour sauce. And I've seen customers come in and do that, and I've seen him, as stoic as he tries to remain, I've seen him die a little inside. View quote
Anthony Bourdain
In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic; in the era of the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles's time, a Puritan; but in this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a Reformer. View quote
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
It may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian? View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. (John Stuart Mill)
From forty to fifty a man is at heart either a stoic or a satyr. View quote
Arthur Wing Pinero
Victor: Get Stoic. View quote
Sherman Alexie
Normal people think we're highly dependent and can't live without ongoing support, but in fact there are times when we're stoic heroes. View quote
Naoki Higashida
Jo nodded. The Vastalimi were stoic about many things, death notwithstanding. People came and went, that was the way of it, and there was no need to be overly disturbed; nothing could be done to change the general pattern, only the individual ones. Everybody got onto the hoverbus, and eventually, everybody got off; the questions were, how long was the ride, and how did you leave? View quote
Steve Perry