Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, as instinct.
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
A man's greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.
He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.
Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
This work somehow awakened my dormant powers of will and I began to practice self-control. At first my resolutions faded like snow in April, but in a little while I conquered my weakness and felt a pleasure I never knew before - that of doing as I willed.
He who gains a victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful.
The finest victory is to conquer one's own heart.
It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.
We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them.
If you can win complete mastery over self, you will easily master all else. To triumph over self is the perfect victory.
Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.
Control your own mind, and you may never be controlled by the mind of another.
No man is such a conqueror, as the one that has defeated himself.
When a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.
To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.
No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?
To be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.
Though thousand times a thousand in battle one may conquer, yet should one conquer just oneself, one is the greatest conqueror.
