Stoic quotes on anger and difficult people

Sometimes life must be drawn back and held at the lip's edge, even with great pain, for the loved ones who count on us. The good man lives not while pleased to, but while bound by duty.

Living among people so confused about what troubles them and why, it is worth watching constantly. Am I one of them? Do I conduct myself as a prudent and temperate man?

When you are offended with anyone's shameless conduct, ask yourself: is it possible that shameless people should not be in the world? It is not possible. Do not require what is impossible.

What good is crossing seas or moving city to city? If you wish to leave behind your trouble, you need not a different place but a different self. Whatever land you choose, you carry your own with you.

If a man places his interest alongside sanctity, goodness, and friends, all are secured. Put interest in one place and justice in another, and everything gives way under the weight.

Has someone wronged me? That is his concern. He has his own disposition, his own activity. What I now possess is what universal nature wills me to possess; what I do is what my own nature wills me to do.

I have been turning this over in my own mind: no weight is heavy when the heart bears it lightly, and no event need stir anger so long as we do not heap further trouble onto trouble by becoming angry.

When you kiss your child, brother, or friend, do not give full rein to the impression; let pleasure not run unchecked. Check it, curb it — as those who stand behind men at their triumphs remind them they are mortal.

If anyone can show me that I do not think or act rightly, I will gladly change. I am after the truth, which has never injured anyone. The one who abides in his error is the one injured.

There is not a person who has benefited their neighbor without benefiting themselves. Not because good conduct returns in a circle, but because the reward for all the virtues lies in the virtues themselves.

Remind yourself that what you love is mortal, and nothing of your own. It has been given for the present, not forever, but like a fig at the appointed season.

Whatever others do or say, I must be good — as the gold, the emerald, the purple keep their nature. Whatever others do or say, I am emerald: I keep my color.

What should you regard as especially to be avoided? Crowds. You cannot yet trust yourself to them safely. I admit my own weakness — I never bring back home the same character I took abroad with me.

You have no leisure to read. But you have leisure to check arrogance, to rise above pleasure and pain, to rise above love of fame, and not to be vexed at stupid and ungrateful people.

Pull back into yourself as much as you possibly can. Keep company with people who will make you better. Welcome those you can help to improve. The flow runs both ways — we teach as we learn.

Suppose someone despises me — let him look to that himself. My concern is only that I not be found doing or saying anything deserving of contempt. Shall someone hate me? Let him look to it.

Do not weigh our worth by the burial mounds or by the unequal monuments lining the road. Their ashes make us all equal. Born unequal, we end equal.

Consider that you also do many things wrong and are a person like others. Even where you abstain from faults, you have the disposition to commit them, restrained only by cowardice or reputation.

Never suppose that happiness can come to anyone through the misery of another. We must untangle the cases pressed upon our eyes and pushed into our ears, and clear our hearts of the wicked talk that fills them.

When much vexed, consider that human life is only a moment, and soon we are all dead. Consider that it is not others' acts but our own opinions which disturb us.

Instead, he parades his arsenal of vices to match the size of his cheering crowd. Cheerleaders and audiences inflame our maddest follies. Stop us from displaying, and you will stop us from craving.