Seneca on Suffering

“Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all — the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet.”
(Letters to Lucilius, LXXVIII.14)

~ Seneca

William Irvine on Control

“A practicing Stoic will keep the trichotomy of control firmly in mind as he goes about his daily affairs. He will perform a kind of triage in which he sorts the elements of his life into three categories: those over which he has complete control, those over which he has no control at all, and those over which he has some but not complete control. The things in the second category—those over which he has no control at all—he will set aside as not worth worrying about. In doing this, he will spare himself a great deal of needless anxiety. He will instead concern himself with things over which he has complete control and things over which he has some but not complete control.”

Irvine, William B. / A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (pp. 100-101). Oxford University Press.

Seneca on Worries

“We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.”

~ Seneca / Epistulae Morales AD Lucilium

Mark Twain on Worrying

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

~ Mark Twain

Ernest Hemingway on Worry

“If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

Seneca on Worrying

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”

~ Seneca

Marcus Aurelius on Worries

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

~ Marcus Aurelius

Seneca on Worrying

“He who indulges empty fears earns himself real fears.”

~ Seneca

Seneca on Worrying

“A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.”

~ Seneca

Seneca on Worrying

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”

~ Seneca