See the hand of God in all events, and thereby become reconciled to His dispensations.

God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.

Without silence, we will not get any closer to knowing who we are before God.

It is in your power to withdraw yourself whenever you desire. Perfect tranquility within consists in the good ordering of the mind, the realm of your own.

Stoicism stressed the search for inner peace and ethical certainty despite the apparent chaos of the external world by emulating in one's personal conduct the underlying orderliness and lawfulness of nature.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul

Everything you're trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you'd only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you'd only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence

If you seek tranquillity, do less.

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

How plain does it appear that there is not another condition of life so well suited for philosophising as this in which thou now happenest to be.

How the mind can participate in the sensations of the body and yet maintain its serenity, and focus on its own well-being.

If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past—can make yourself, as Empedocles says, "a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness," and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present) then you can spend the time you have left in tranquillity. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.