Quotes I've found interesting

...life deals out unexpected joys and sorrows, and we can but treasure or suffer each.

Terry Brooks,   The Last Druid

No role is so well suited to philosophy as the one you happen to be in right now.

Marcus Aurelius  

Small things were important. Seconds were small things, and if you heaped enough of those on top of one another, they became a man's life.

Brandon Sanderson,   Towers of Midnight

We are wrong to think that death is ahead of us. Much of our life has already passed. The years we have lived so far are in death's hands.

Seneca,   Moral Letters 1

If you’ve lost your job, if you went through a painful breakup, if you’ve been forced to start over, if your sandcastle or your ship has been swallowed up—congratulations, you’ve been gifted a remarkable opportunity. You get to choose the life you want to build. Well done, Fortune, to drive you thus to the life you’ve always wanted.

Ryan Holiday,   Daily Stoic Email, 8/10/2021

Decisions are made and consequences follow, it is the way. Our task is to deal with the present.

King Alfred,   The Last Kingdom, s02e06

In every situation, you can find a better story to tell yourself about the person who cut you off in traffic, about the cashier in the checkout line you’re stuck in, about the email you still haven’t gotten a reply to, about the player who isn’t performing the way you need them to.  You just need to be aware enough of the circumstance and of your mind’s own tendency to react, in order to consider other options, to see other handles, to ask, “is this the only story?”

Ryan Holiday,   Daily Stoic Email, 4/14/2022

He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.

Seneca  

There’s no reason to rush through bedtime. There’s no reason to rush through anything or to anywhere. Because what we’re rushing from is our children and the limited time we get with them — the amount of which is never guaranteed.

Ryan Holiday,   Daily Stoic - How the Pandemic Changed Me as a Parent

Is this not the time when a man must take time to appreciate what he has?

Brandon Sanderson,   Towers of Midnight