A passage from Cicero
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV.13
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The passions are all in our own power. We cannot prevent the first movements of the soul, but we can prevent them from becoming passions by withholding our consent.
Related passages
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Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
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Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains... But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself.
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Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, and the harm is taken away.