48 Short Rules for (The Good) Life | A Collection of Ancient Sayings
In a letter to Lucilius, Seneca advised, “Obtain each day some aid against poverty, something against death, and likewise, against other calamities.” One way to do so is to commit to memory a short saying or aphorism to help guide your life.
In Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life They Change It, author Daniel Klein reflected on the short sayings he collected throughout his life. Klein wrote, “Not long ago while packing away some books, I came across an old notebook labeled ‘pithy.’” Klein’s notebook contained short quotes (one per page) from philosophers he jotted down over the years.
What follows is a collection of short sayings I’ve collected over the last few years. Like Klein, I hoped to gain some guidance from great philosophers and spiritual thinkers on living the good life.
48 Short Rules for (The Good) Life:
“I quote others in order to better myself.” — Montaigne
“Devote the rest of your life to making progress.” — Epictetus
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates
“Day by day, what you do is who you become.” — Heraclitus
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” — Thoreau
“Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.” — Baruch Spinoza
“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.” — Viktor Frankl
“To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.” — Dogen
“Well-being is realized by small steps but is truly no small thing.” — Zeno
“I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole.” — Carl Jung
“Freedom is secured by the removal of desire.” — Epictetus
“If you want to be happy, be.” — Leo Tolstoy
“Forgiveness is the final form of love.” — Rheinhold Niebuhr
“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”— Oscar Wilde
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” — Buddha
“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” — Seneca
“More is lost by indecision than wrong decisions.” — Cicero
“Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” — Chuang Tzu
“The one who lives in the present lives in eternity.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.” — Spinoza
“What you now have was once what you only hoped for.” — Epicurus
“Meaning makes many things endurable. Perhaps everything.” — Jung
“We know accurately only when we know little.” — Wolfgang von Goethe
“Compassion is the chief law of existence.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
“Contemplation is the highest activity of human life.” — Aristotle
“Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak.” — Seneca
“We are healed of suffering only by experiencing it fully.” — M. Proust
“The price of anything is the amount life you exchange...” — Thoreau
“To the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.”— Lao Tzu
“It is impossible to learn what you think you already know.” — Epictetus
“Right is right even if no one is doing it.” — St. Augustine
“Happiness depends on the quality of your thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
“The most important decision you ever make is your mood.” — Voltaire
“Kindness gives birth to kindness.” — Sophocles
“Finish every day and be done with it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“While you delay, life speeds by.” — Seneca
“All great thoughts are conceived while walking.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“When there is no desire, all things are at peace.” — Lao Tzu
“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.” — Montaigne
“The thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling.” — Kierkegaard
“One moment can change a day. One day can change a life.” — Buddha
“Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle.” — Confucius
“For me to be a saint mean to be myself.” — Thomas Merton
“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.” — Leonardo Da Vinci
“No one ever became wise by chance.” — Seneca
Great thinkers throughout history have committed to memory the wisdom of others. Marcus Aurelius, for example, wrote in his journal, Always remember the words of Heraclitus:
No one steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and they are not the same person.
And Seneca concluded many of his letters with a quote from Epicurus. Seneca famously said, “I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.” But before committing a short saying to memory, it is essential to ask whether or not it will aid your actions.
As Epictetus stressed, “Do not talk about your philosophy. Embody it.”.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful. If so, please consider sharing it with others.
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