Gregory Lopez > Quotes

“Once you’re angry, reason has gone out to lunch, and you are liable to do things that you will regret—”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons

“The Epictetian version of the evening meditation suggests that we ask ourselves three specific questions: Where have we gone wrong? What have we done right? What is left, as yet, undone? The goal of the first question is to humbly learn from our mistakes. The purpose of the second is to practice shifting our natural propensity away from erroneous thinking and toward right thinking, by taking time to acknowledge when right thinking has occurred (although note that vanity is not a Stoic virtue). The third question is future directed, aimed at preparing our minds for the tasks ahead and focusing on what is important as well as on the best way to accomplish it.”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons

“every ship pilot is good when the waters are calm, but it is the storm that both tests and improves his skills.1 And what is the fun in always navigating flat waters?”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons

“From thought (the judgment) and impulse (the desire to act) comes the “will to get and to avoid.”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons

“Stoicism inspired a family of schools of effective psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), starting with Albert Ellis’s rational emotive behavior therapy in the 1950s.”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons

“we ask ourselves three specific questions: Where have we gone wrong? What have we done right? What is left, as yet, undone? The goal of the first question is to humbly learn from our mistakes. The purpose of the second is to practice shifting our natural propensity away from erroneous thinking and toward right thinking,”
― Gregory Lopez, A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons