We don’t seek the painful experiences that hue our identities; but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment; but we can endure great pain if we believe that it’s purposeful.

Recommended reading: Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.

Most people tend to delude themselves into thinking that freedom comes from doing what feels good or what fosters comfort and ease. The truth is that people who subordinate reason to their feelings of the moment are actually slaves of their desires and aversions. They are ill-prepared to act effectively and nobly when unexpected challenges occur, as they inevitable will. Authentic freedom places demands on us. In discovering and comprehending our fundamental relations to one another and zestfully performing our duties, true freedom, which all people long for, is indeed possible.

Recommended reading: Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness.

Things themselves don’t hurt or hinder us. Nor do other people. How we view these things is another matter. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble. Therefore even death is no big deal in and out of itself. It is our notion of death, our idea that it is terrible, that terrifies us. There are so many different ways to think about death – and everything else. Are they really true? Are they doing you any good? Don’t dread death or pain: dread the fear of death or pain. We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

Recommended reading: Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness.

Real solitude comes from a stable heard that does not get carried away by the pull of the crowd, nor by the sorrows about the past, worries about the future, or excitement or stress about the present.

Recommended reading: Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…”

And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

Recommended reading: Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience.

If we never suffer, there is no basis or impetus for developing understanding and compassion. Suffering is very important. We have to learn to recognize and even embrace suffering, as our awareness of it helps us grow.

Recommended reading: Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Recommended reading: The Little Prince.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think ‘Okay, this is the limit. As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

Recommended reading: Ayrton Senna: The Whole Story.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Recommended reading: Man’s Search for Meaning.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

Recommended reading: On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families.