Instead of jumping from 1 thing to another all the time, do 1 thing, well. Example with reading.
“Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.”
For each day, pick one thought and spend time digesting it:
“After running over a lot of different thoughts, pick out one to be digested thoroughly that day.”
“You should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a lasting place in your mind.”
You should have absolute confidence in your friends. Meaning that you should think before you make anyone your “friend”.
“if you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.”
Seek balance:
“You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.”
As a philosopher, focus on inward change, not outwards change to bring attention to yourself. Philosopher should be a member of a community. Being different alienates you from the rest.
“The first thing philosophy promises us is the feeling of fellowship, of belonging to mankind and being members of a community; being different will mean the abandoning of that manifesto.”
Hope and fear are very similar: rooted in non-present conditions. Vs living in the present:
“Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.”
“A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely.”
“part of my joy in learning is that it puts me in a position to teach”
“Personal converse, though, and daily intimacy with someone will be of more benefit to you than any discourse.”
“When a mind is impressionable and has none too firm a hold on what is right, it must be rescued from the crowd: it is so easy for it to go over to the majority.”
“inability of any of us, even as we perfect our personality’s adjustment, to withstand the onset of vices when they come with such a mighty following.”
“Avoid,’ I cry, ‘whatever is approved of by the mob, and things that are the gift of chance.”
“indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health”
“Quite possibly you’ll be demanding to know why I’m quoting so many fine sayings from Epicurus rather than ones belonging to our own school. But why should you think of them as belonging to Epicurus and not as common property?”
“he is so in the sense that he is able to do without friends, not that he desires to do without them”
“Great pleasure is to be found not only in keeping up an old and established friendship but also in beginning and building up a new one.”
“To procure friendship only for better and not for worse is to rob it of all its dignity.”
“The wise man, he said, lacked nothing but needed a great number of things, whereas ‘the fool, on the other hand, needs nothing (for he does not know how to use anything) but lacks everything.’ The wise man needs hands and eyes and a great number of things that are required for the purposes of day-to-day life; but he lacks nothing, for lacking something implies that it is a necessity and nothing, to the wise man, is a necessity.”
“‘Any man,’ he says, ‘who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.”
“These are things which neither training nor experience ever eliminates.”
“Well, we should cherish old age and enjoy it. It is full of pleasure if you know how to use it.”
“And I shall persist in inflicting Epicurus on you, in order to bring it home to the people who take an oath of allegiance to someone and never afterwards consider what is being said but only who said it, that the things of greatest merit are common property.”
“There are short and simple exercises which will tire the body without undue delay and save what needs especially close accounting for, time.”
“The life of folly is empty of gratitude, full of anxiety: it is focused wholly on the future”
“why should I demand from fortune that she should give me this and that rather than demand from myself that I should not ask for them?”
“making noble resolutions is not as important as keeping the resolutions you have made already”
“If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.”
“whenever you want to know whether the desire aroused in you by something you are pursuing is natural or quite unseeing, ask yourself whether it is capable of coming to rest at any point; if after going a long way there is always something remaining farther away, be sure it is not something natural”
“set aside now and then a number of days during which you will be content with the plainest of food, and very little of it, and with rough, coarse clothing, and will ask yourself, ‘Is this what one used to dread?’ It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself to deal with difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favours on it then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs”
Note: See [[4-hour-workweek#3 Dodging bullets]]
“all your debates and learned conferences, your scholarly talk and collection of maxims from the teachings of philosophers, are in no way indicative of genuine spiritual strength. It’s only when you’re breathing your last that the way you’ve spent your time will become apparent.”
“Of this one thing make sure against your dying day – that your faults die before you do.”
“A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.”
- It cannot be delegated.
“How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away.”
“Once you have rid yourself of the affliction there, though, every change of scene will become a pleasure.”
“Where you arrive does not matter so much as what sort of person you are when you arrive there. We ought not, therefore, to give over our hearts for good to any one part of the world. We should live with the conviction: ‘I wasn’t born for one particular corner: the whole world’s my home country.”
“When things stand out and attract attention in a work you can be sure there is an uneven quality about it”
(yes, ironic 😄)
“It is one thing, however, to remember, another to know.”
“precepts have the same features as seeds: they are of compact dimensions and they produce impressive results – given, as I say, the right sort of mind, to grasp at and assimilate them.”