“Comparison is the thief of joy”
—Theodore Roosevelt

“Don’t tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It’s been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report—the report wasn’t that you’ve been harmed. I see that my son is sick—but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions, and don’t add to them in your head—this way nothing can happen to you.”
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.49

When you have been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to yourself and do not continue out of tune longer than the compulsion lasts; for you will have more mastery over the harmony by continually recurring to it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.11

A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope.
—Epictetus, Fragments

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, ~~

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
—Seneca

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
—Albert Camus