The nicomachean ethics - Aristotle

1. What definition of the good then will hold true in all of the arts? Perhaps we may define it as that for the sake of which everything else is done
2. hence if there is the end of all the things done by human action, this will be the practicable good
3. now happiness above all else appears to be absolutely final in this sense, since we always choose it for its own sake and never as a means to something else; whereas honour, pleasure, intelligence, and excellence in its various forms, we choose indeed for their own sakes
4. self-sufficiency of happiness
5. we think happiness the most desirable of all good things
6. gives rise to the questionwhether happiness is a thing that can be learnt, or acquired by training, or cultivated in some other manner, or wether it is bestowed by some divine dispersion or even by fortune.
7. It is the active excercise of our faculties conformity with virtues that causes happiness
8. no surpremely happy man can ever become miserable
9. importance of having been definitely trained from childhood to like and dislike the proper things; this is what good education means.
10. to feel pleasure and pain rightly or wrongly has a great effect on conducts. It is harder to fight against pleasur than against anger, but virtue is constantly dealing with what is harder, since the harder the task the better is success.
11. we must be in everything be most of all on our guard against what is pleasant and against pleasure

Epictetus - of human freedom

1. And yet while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others: to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends and slaves. And, being attached to many things, we are weighted down and dragged along with them.
2. I have to die. If it is now, well them I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch is arrived - and dying I will tend to later.
3. You are the one who knows yourself - which is to say, you know how much you are worth in your own estimation, and therefore at what price you will sell yourself; because people sell themselves at different rates.
4. what is good or bad for us lies in the will and that we are indifferent to everything else
5. no one has power over our principles
6. what other people do control we don’t care about
7. in general, remember that it is we who torment, we who make difficulties for ourselves. What, for instance, does it mean to be insulted? Stand by a rock and insult it…
8. death and pain are not frightening, it’s the fear of pain and death we need to fear
9. so be confident about death, and caution yourself against the fear of it
10. what else is freedom but the power to live our life the way we want?
11. Whoever has gained relieve from grief, fear and anxiety has gained freedom
12. whats left to be nervous about? We agonize over our body, our money, or what the emperor is going to decree - never about anything inside us
13. it is not in a goods persons nature to grieve, complain or whine;
14. it’s his problem if he receives you badly
15. and you cannot suffer for another persons fault. So don’t worry about the behaviour of others
16. so how does one get there? Start by wanting to please yourself, for a change, and appear worthy in the eyes of God. Desire to become pure, and, once pure, you will be at ease with yourself and comfortable in the company of God
17. dont let the force of the impression when first it hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it „hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test
18. its a fight for autonomy, freedom, happiness, and peace
19. a pretty woman has made me a perfect slave, something not even my fiercest enemies could accomplish
20. but until he succeeds in suppressing his lust and anxiety, how is he really free
21. consider how we apply the idea of freedom to animals. There are tame lions that people cage, raise, feed and take with them wherever they go. Yet who will call such a lion free? The easier the life, the more slavish it is. No lion endowed with reason and discretion. Wild choose to be one of these pet specimens.
22. diogenes says somewhere that one way to guarantee freedom is to be ready to die.
23. “once I am set free“ he says „everything will be roses right away. I won’t have to wait“ (a slave)
24. finally, when he crowns it off by becoming a senator, then he becomes a slave in fine company, then he experiences the poshest and most prodigious form of enslavement
25. the same thing, really, that we all want, to live in peace, to be happy, to das we like and never be foiled or forced to act against our values
26. then whenever you see someone grovel before another, or flatter them insincerely, you can safely assume that person is not free
27. a plant or animal fares poorly when it acts against its nature and a human beg is no different.
28. people imagine that everything good will be theirs if only they could acquire them. Then they get the: and their longing is unchanged, their anxiety unchanged.
29. freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it
30. if, however, their efforts aim at improving the mind, then - and only then - do I call them hard-working
31. bearing all this in mind, welcome present circ7mstances and accept thgs whose time has arrived
32. 
    

phllip K. Dick - Martian time-slip

 As the guy said, I‘m not much but I‘m all I have.