Contrary to popular belief, practicing Stoicism doesn't mean you have to live an emotionless life. As you'll see in these Stoic quotes about true love, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and others did not see love as something that is contradictory to their philosophy.
While the ancient Stoics embraced the emotion of love, they also understood that this natural human emotion could lead to desire, grief, pain, and fear, all of which are to be avoided in the search for eudaimonia.
The Stoics weren't afraid to recognize the power and beauty that true love can bring to one's life. At the same time, they were constantly moderating their emotions through proper judgment and understanding. This means that even while writing about the joy of life, they are aware of the potential for betrayal, loss, and a change in their passions over time.
"Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding."
– Seneca the Younger
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
– Marcus Aurelius
"Let no man think that he is loved by any who loveth none."
– Epictetus
"Those alone are wise who know how to love."
– Seneca the Younger
"I shall show you a love potion without a drug, without a herb; without the incantation of any sorceress: if you want to be loved, love."
– Hecato
“Whoever then understands what is good, can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.”
– Epictetus
"Joy comes to us from those whom we love even when they are absent … when present, seeing them and associating intimately with them yields real pleasure…"
– Seneca the Younger
If someone is incapable of distinguishing good things from bad and neutral things from either – well, how could such a person be capable of love? The power to love, then, belongs only to the wise man."
– Epictetus
"The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down; aspires and not despairs."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
– Henry David Thoreau
"Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart."
– Gautama Buddha
"Love, and you shall be loved."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"If you would be loved, love, and be loveable."
– Benjamin Franklin
We have Musonius Rufus to thank for the lion's share of our Stoic quotes about marriage, who discusses the elements of a "noble union" as well as the actions and instincts that can destroy a relationship.
"So, in marriage, there must be, above all, perfect companionship and mutual love – both in sickness, health and under all conditions-it should be with desire for this (and children) that both entered upon marriage.”
– Musonius Rufus
"Now, appropriate actions are of three kinds: first, those relating to mere existence, secondly, those relating to existence of a particular kind, and thirdly, those that are themselves principal duties. And what are those? Fulfilling one’s role as a citizen, marrying, having children, honouring God, taking care of one’s parents, and, in a word, having our desires and aversions, and our motives to act and or not to act, as each of them ought to be, in accordance with our nature. And what is our nature? To be people who are free, noble-minded, and self-respecting. For what other animal blushes; what other animal has a sense of shame? Pleasure should be subordinated to these duties as a servant, as an attendant, so as to arouse our zeal, so as to ensure that we consistently act in accord with nature."
– Epictetus
“This is what you should teach me, how to be like Odysseus—how to love my country, wife and father, and how, even after suffering shipwreck, I might keep sailing on course to those honorable ends.”
– Seneca the Younger
"When such caring for one another is perfect, and the married couple provide it for one another, and each strives to outdo the other, then this is marriage as it ought to be and deserving of emulation, since it is a noble union. But when one partner looks to his own interests alone and neglects the other's, or (by Zeus) the other is so minded that he lives in the same house, but keeps his mind on what is outside it, and does not wish to pull together with his partner or to cooperate, then inevitably the union is destroyed, and although they live together their common interests fare badly, and either they finally get divorced from one another or they continue on in an existence that is worse than loneliness.”
– Musonius Rufus
“Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.”
–Epictetus
“When the lamp has been removed from my sight, and my wife, no stranger now to my habit, has fallen silent, I examine the whole of my day and retrace my actions and words; I hide nothing from myself, pass over nothing. For why should I be afraid of any of my mistakes, when I can say: ‘Beware of doing that again, and this time I pardon you.”
– Seneca the Younger
"Husband and wife should come together to craft a shared life, procreating children, seeing all things as shared between them-with nothing withheld or private to one another-not even their bodies."
– Musonius Rufus
“And yet would not anyone admit how much better it is, instead of exerting oneself to win someone else’s wife, to exert oneself to discipline one’s desires; instead of enduring hardships for the sake of money, to train oneself to want little; instead of giving oneself trouble about getting notoriety, to give oneself trouble how not to thirst for notoriety; instead of trying to find a way to injure an envied person, to inquire how not to envy anyone; and instead of slaving, as sycophants do, to win false friends, to undergo suffering in order to possess true friends?”
– Musonius Rufus
“The good man should go on living as long as he ought to, not just as long as he likes. The man who does not value his wife or a friend highly enough to stay on a little longer in life, who persists in dying in spite of them, is a thoroughly self-indulgent character.”
– Seneca the Younger
"Marriage is the perfection which love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A good spouse and health is a person's best wealth."
– Benjamin Franklin
"When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship."
– Joseph Campbell
We don't just feel love for our spouses and family-- love is also an emotion that is very pertinent to true friendship. Seneca the Younger, one of the Stoics who wrote with a more emotional, poetic tone, offers much wisdom and advice on the topic in the following quotes.
"Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures."
– Seneca the Younger
"…Let us enjoy our friends avidly, for how long this blessing will fall to our lot is uncertain."
– Seneca the Younger
"True friends are the whole world to one another; and he that is a friend to himself is also a friend to mankind. Even in my studies the greatest delight I take is of imparting it to others; for there is no relish to me in the possessing of anything without a partner."
– Seneca the Younger
“Above all, keep a close watch on this—that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined. . . . You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends . . . if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.”
– Epictetus
"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood."
– Seneca the Younger
"There can be no doubt that the desire lovers have for each other is not so very different from friendship - you might say it was friendship gone mad."
– Seneca the Younger
"Actual love in itself, heedless of all other considerations, inflames people’s hearts with a passion for the beautiful object, not without the hope, too, that the affection will be mutual. How then can the nobler stimulus of friendship be associated with any ignoble desire?"
– Seneca the Younger
"The only way to have a friend is to be one."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines."
– Benjamin Franklin
"The language of friendship is not words but meanings."
– Henry David Thoreau
"Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of mere inertia."
– William James
"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"If you'd be beloved, make yourself amiable. A true friend is the best possession."
– Benjamin Franklin
"The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend."
– Henry David Thoreau
"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Loving another person is one of the things that can add a great deal of meaning to life, but it can also lead to pain, suffering, desire, and other negative emotions. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius remind us that we should "never depend on the admiration of another," even the people that love us.
“Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like the Sun.”
– Epictetus
“Those obsessed with glory attach their well-being to the regard of others, those who love pleasure tie it to feelings, but the one with true understanding seeks it only in their own actions…. Think on the character of the people one wishes to please, the possessions one means to gain, and the tactics one employs to such ends. How quickly time erases such things, and how many will yet be wiped away.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!"
– Epictetus
The ancient Stoics were cosmopolitans who "believe[d] that goodness requires serving other human beings as best as one can." Marcus Aurelius puts it beautifully when he explains that "we were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural."
“Nature bore us related to one another … She instilled in us a mutual love and made us compatible … Let us hold everything in common; we stem from a common source. Our fellowship is very similar to an arch of stones, which would fall apart if they did not reciprocally support each other.”
– Seneca the Younger
"From my brother Severus I learned to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice."
– Marcus Aurelius
"For mankind, evil is injustice and cruelty and indifference to a neighbor’s trouble, while virtue is brotherly love and goodness and justice and beneficence and concern for the welfare of your neighbor."
-Musonius Rufus
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
– Marcus Aurelius
"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others."
– Marcus Aurelius
"All the good are friends of one another."
-Zeno of Citium
"To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family."
– Gautama Buddha
"Love others as you would love yourself, judge others as you would judge yourself, cherish others as you would cherish yourself. When you wish for others as you wish for yourself and when you protect others as you would protect yourself, that's when you can say it's true love."
– Confucius
"Until he has unconditional and unbiased love for all beings, man will not find peace."
– Gautama Buddha
While the Stoics didn't shy away from the passionate reality of love, that doesn't mean they abandoned their larger philosophy and became completely irrational regarding the topic.
Epictetus is particularly willing to remind us that the people we love will not be with us forever and that we must always remember that "the object of [our] love is mortal."
“The object of your love is mortal; it is not one of your possessions; it has been given to you for the present, not inseparably nor forever.”
– Epictetus
“Not in our power are all the elements which constitute our environment, such as wealth, health, reputation, social prestige, power, the lives of those we love, and death. In our power are our thinking, our intentions, our desires, our decisions. These make it possible for us to control ourselves and to make of ourselves elements and parts of the universe of nature. This knowledge of ourselves makes us free in a world of dependencies. This superiority of our powers enables us to live in conformity with nature.”
– Epictetus
“With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things. If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.”
– Epictetus
“Remember that all we have is “on loan” from Fortune, which can reclaim it without our permission—indeed, without even advance notice. Thus, we should love all our dear ones, but always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them forever—nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long.”
– Seneca the Younger
“When you are delighted with anything, be delighted as with a thing which is not one of those which cannot be taken away, but as something of such a kind, as an earthen pot is, or a glass cup, that, when it has been broken, you may remember what it was and may not be troubled… What you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish for these things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your son or friend when it is not allowed to you, you must know that you are wishing for a fig in winter.”
– Epictetus
A discussion of a Stoic perspective on love wouldn't be complete without touching upon the notion of amor fati-- the love of one's fate.
It isn't always easy to "love the people with whom fate brings you together," as Marcus Aurelius writes in his Meditations, nor is it simple "to love only what happens, what was destined." However, if you work to adopt this mentality, you'll likely find that your ability to find happiness in your life, regardless of what happens, increases substantially.
“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”
– Marcus Aurelius
As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man’s life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.”
– Seneca the Younger
"Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you."
– Marcus Aurelius
“But you know how to make the crooked straight
And to bring order to the disorderly; even the unloved is loved by you.
For you have so joined all things into one, the good and the bad,
That they all share in a single unified everlasting reason.”– Cleanthes
“To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.”
– Marcus Aurelius
"Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them."
– Marcus Aurelius
"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."
– John Lennon
"Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift."
– Dante Alighieri
We are all guilty of ruminating on the past and dreaming of the future, perhaps particularly when it comes to the topic of love. The Stoics are quick to remind us, though, that the present is where our actual lives lie. For this reason, we must direct our attention to the current moment rather than those that are gone or those that have yet to come.
“Let no one,' I say, 'who will make me no worthy return for such a loss rob me of a single day; let my mind be fixed upon itself, let it cultivate itself, let it busy itself with nothing outside, nothing that looks towards an umpire; let it love the tranquillity that is remote from public and private concern.”
– Seneca the Younger
"The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty."
– Seneca the Younger
“We live only now. Everything else is either passed or is unknown.”
– Marcus Aurelius
"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."
– Benjamin Franklin
“Always hold fast to the present. Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
– Buddha
The Stoics also recognized that a love of truth and virtue is necessary for a good life. As Marcus Aurelius says, the truth hasn't ever actually harmed anyone, but "self-deception and ignorance" will cause great harm.
"A man that seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society."
– Epictetus
“And do you know why we have not the power to attain this Stoic ideal? It is because we refuse to believe in our power. Nay, of a surety, there is something else which plays a part: it is because we are in love with our vices; we uphold them and prefer to make excuses for them rather than shake them off. We mortals have been endowed with sufficient strength by nature, if only we use this strength, if only we concentrate our powers and rouse them all to help us or at least not to hinder us. The reason is unwillingness, the excuse, inability.”
– Seneca the Younger
“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”
– Marcus Aurelius
"Truth will never be tedious unto him that travelleth in the secrets of nature; there is nothing but falsehood that glutteth us."
– Seneca the Younger
"Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."
– Confucius
"Shine your light on love and truth and your soul will glow."
– Anthony D. Williams
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
– Soren Kierkegaard
Finally, let's close off with a few quotes about loving life and its beauty. Even if you're single right now or dealing with troubles in your love life, you can always take a moment to "dwell on the beauty of life."
"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."
– Marcus Aurelius
"An angry look on the face is wholly against nature. If it be assumed frequently, beauty begins to perish, and in the end is quenched beyond rekindling."
– Marcus Aurelius
"Anything that is beautiful is beautiful just as it is. Praise forms no part of its beauty, since praise makes things neither better nor worse. This applies even more to what it commonly called beautiful: natural objects, for example, or works of art. True beauty has no need of anything beyond itself."
– Marcus Aurelius
"Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love."
– Rabindranath Tagore
"Life is beauty, admire it."
– Mother Teresa
Frequently engaging with the wise words of the ancient Stoics is a great way to learn about Stoicism and remind yourself of Stoic principles throughout the day. For more inspiring and thought-provoking quotes, visit our Stoic quotes blog.
We encourage you to share this article on Twitter and Facebook. Just click those two links - you'll see why.
It's important to share the news to spread the truth. Most people won't.
