Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.

The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.

Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.

Exile is not an evil.

-- Gaius Musonius Rufus

Fire tests gold; adversity tests strong people.

-- Seneca

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

-- Marcus Aurelius

We survive through adversity and perish through comfort.

-- Mencius

What does not kill me makes me stronger.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

-- Albert Camus