Aedan

“Ernest Hemingway wrote that happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing. However, if we are intelligent yet unhappy, then perhaps we are not intelligent enough. Socrates, Seneca, and Epictetus were intelligent enough to find happiness and contentment—even while drinking hemlock, cutting their veins, or living as crippled slaves.”
― Giannis Delimitsos

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
― Epictetus

“Let us admit to ourselves without trying to be considerate, how every higher culture on earth has begun. Human beings whose nature was
still natural, barbarians in every terrible sense, men of prey who were still in possession of unbroken strength of will and lust for power,
hurled themselves upon weaker, more civilized, more peaceful races. In the beginning the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their
predominance lied in not only physical strength, but also in strength of soul. They were more whole human beings, which means, at every level, more whole beasts.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“But my nose is running!' What do you have hands for, idiot, if not to wipe it? 'But how is it right that there be running noses in the first place?' Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn't it be easier just to wipe your nose?”
― Epictetus, Discourses and Selected Writings