Quotes About Epictetus

#1. Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.

Epictetus

#2. If you wish to be good, first believe that you are bad.

Epictetus

#3. Is then the fruit of a fig-tree not perfect suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit of a man's mind in so short a time and so easily?

Epictetus

#4. Asked how a man should best grieve his enemy, Epictetus replied, By setting himself to live the noblest life himself.

Epictetus

#5. Only consider at what price you sell your own will: if for no other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum.

Epictetus

#6. If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

Epictetus

#7. Happiness is an equivalent for all troublesome things.

Epictetus

#8. The soul that companies with virtue is like an ever-flowing source. It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught, sweet, rich and generous of its store, that injures not, neither destroys.

Epictetus

#9. When one maintains his proper attitude in life, he does not long after externals.

Epictetus

#10. All religions must be tolerated ... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

Epictetus

#11. We can't control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character.

Epictetus

#12. If you think you control things that are in the control of others, you will lament. You will be disturbed and you will blame both gods and men.

Epictetus

#13. The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.

Epictetus

#14. In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always.

Epictetus

#15. You're not yet Socrates, but you can still live as if you want to be him.

Epictetus

#16. If they are wise, do not quarrel with them; if they are fools, ignore them.

Epictetus

#17. Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives to them.

Epictetus

#18. There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.

Epictetus

#19. Common and vulgar people ascribe all ills that they feel to others; people of little wisdom ascribe to themselves; people of much wisdom, to no one.

Epictetus

#20. We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

Epictetus

#21. To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.

Epictetus

#22. Choose the life that is noblest, for custom can make it sweet to thee.

Epictetus

#23. you're unable to make someone change his views, recognize that he is a child, and clap as he does. Or if you don't care to act in such a way, you have only to keep quiet.

Epictetus

#24. Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself.

Epictetus

#25. If someone irritates you, it is only your own response that is irritating you. Therefore, when anyone seems to be provoking you, remember that it is only your judgment of the incident that provokes you. -

Epictetus

#26. Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

Epictetus

#27. He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.

Epictetus

#28. Don't put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.

Epictetus

#29. You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit.

Epictetus

#30. You are a spirit, bearing the weight of a dead body, as Epictetus used to say.

Marcus Aurelius

#31. It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.

Epictetus

#32. Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

Epictetus

#33. Torn between violence and disillusionment, I seem to myself a terrorist who, going out in the street to perpetrate some outrage, stops on the way to consult Ecclesiastes or Epictetus.

Emil Cioran

#34. I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.

Epictetus

#35. Your master is he who controls that on which you have set your heart or wish to avoid.

Epictetus

#36. No man is disturbed by things, but by his opinion about things.

Epictetus

#37. When we act pugnaciously, and injuriously, and angrily, and rudely, to what level have we degenerated? To the level of the wild beasts. Well, the fact is that some of us are wild beasts of a larger size, while others are little animals, malignant and petty.

Epictetus

#38. Who, then, is the invincible human being? One who can be disconcerted by nothing that lies outside the sphere of choice.

Epictetus

#39. It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

Epictetus

#40. If you wish it, you are free; if you wish it, you'll find fault with no one, you'll cast blame on no one, and everything that comes about will do so in accordance with your own will and that of God.

Epictetus

#41. Don't be concerned with other people's impressions of you. They are dazzled and deluded by appearances. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence.

Epictetus

#42. Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

Epictetus

#43. If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

Epictetus

#44. People with a strong physical constitution can tolerate extremes of hot and cold; people of strong mental health can handle anger, grief, joy and the other emotions.

Epictetus

#45. Everything has two handles,-one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.

Epictetus

#46. Protect what belongs to you at all costs; don't desire what belongs to another.

Epictetus

#47. In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught;but in life there are many things to draw us aside.

Epictetus

#48. The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter.

Epictetus

#49. There is but one way to tranquility of mind and happiness, and that is to account no external things thine own, but to commit all to God.

Epictetus

#50. Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but
eat as you ought. For remember that in this manner Socrates also universally avoided all ostentation.

Epictetus

#51. Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed).

Epictetus

#52. Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinion about the things.

Epictetus

#53. A ship should not be held by a single anchor; neither should life depend upon a single hope.

Epictetus

#54. Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

Epictetus

#55. Think of God more often than thou breathest.

Epictetus

#56. No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whosoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties is at the same time delivered from servitude.

Epictetus

#57. Whatever your mission, stick by it as if it were a law and you would be committing sacrilege to betray it. Pay no attention to whatever people might say; this no longer should influence you.

Epictetus

#58. Don't seek that all that comes about should come about as you wish, but wish that everything that comes about should come about just as it does, and then you'll have a calm and happy life.

Epictetus

#59. And have you not received faculties which will enable you to bear all that happens to you? Have you not received greatness of spirit? Have you not received courage? Have you not received endurance?

Epictetus

#60. Many people who have progressively lowered their personal standards in an attempt to win social acceptance and life's comforts bitterly resent those of philosophical bent who refuse to compromise their spiritual ideals and who seek to better themselves.

Epictetus

#61. It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.

Epictetus

#62. To get or not to get what we desire can be equally disappointing.

Epictetus

#63. Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Epictetus

#64. Pleasure, like a kind of bait, is thrown before everything which is really bad, and easily allures greedy souls to the hook of perdition.

Epictetus

#65. Resistance is vain in any case; it only leads to useless struggle while inviting grief and sorrow.

Epictetus

#66. Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit

Epictetus

#67. If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, for the pleasure of any one, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be contented, then, in everything, with being a philosopher; and if you with to seem so likewise to any one, appear so to yourself, and it will suffice you.

Epictetus

#68. I can't speak for Aeschylus or Epictetus or Aristotle. But I am convinced of this: they would have hated having their wisdom confined to classrooms and textbooks. This is wisdom about how to live. And it's your property as much as anyone's. It is yours. Take it. Use it.

Eric Greitens

#69. There is no shame in making an honest effort.

Epictetus

#70. You lose only the things you have

Epictetus

#71. As long as you honour material things, direct your anger at yourself rather than the thief or adulterer.

Epictetus

#72. Who is a friend?" his answer was, "A second self (alter ego).

Epictetus

#73. Liars are the cause of all the sins and crimes in the world.

Epictetus

#74. When you let go of your attention for a little while, do not think you may recover it whenever you please.

Epictetus

#75. The materials are indifferent, but the use we make of them is not a matter of indifference.

Epictetus

#76. You ought to realize, you take up very little space in the world as a whole - your body, that is; in reason, however, you yield to no one, not even to the gods, because reason is not measured in size but sense. So why not care for that side of you, where you and the gods are equals?

Epictetus

#77. Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, "He who is content.

Epictetus

#78. In trying to please other people, we find ourselves misdirected toward what lies outside our sphere of influence. In doing so, we lose our hold on our lifes purpose.

Epictetus

#79. When any person treats you ill or speaks ill of you, remember that he does this or says this because he thinks it is his duty. It is not possible, then, for him to follow that which seems right to you, but that which seems right to himself.

Epictetus

#80. For what else is tragedy than the portrayal in tragic verse of the sufferings of men who have attached high value to external things? [27]

Epictetus

#81. What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes. 'How does it come, then?' As God wills.

Epictetus

#82. A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.

Epictetus

#83. Give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths.

Epictetus

#84. Why are you pestering me, pal? My own evils are enough for me.

Epictetus

#85. None of these things are foretold to me; but either to my paltry body, or property, or reputation, or children, or wife. But to me all omens are lucky, if I will. For whichever of these things happens, it is in my control to derive advantage from it.

Epictetus

#86. We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.

Epictetus

#87. Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.

Epictetus

#88. If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?

Epictetus

#89. As Epictetus said centuries ago, "It is impossible to begin to learn what one thinks one already knows." This

Liz Wiseman

#90. Epictetus being asked how a man should give pain to his enemy answered, By preparing himself to live the best life that he can.

Epictetus

#91. What is learned without pleasure is forgotten without remorse.

Epictetus

#92. It is unrealistc to expect people to see you as you see yourself.

Epictetus

#93. Renew every day your conversation with God: Do this even in preference to eating. Think more often of God than you breathe.

Epictetus

#94. If you have assumed a character above your strength, you have both acted in this matter in an unbecoming way, and you have neglected that which you might have fulfilled.

Epictetus

#95. Never say about anything, I have lost it, but only I have given it back.

Epictetus

#96. God save me from fools with a little philosophy - no one is more difficult to reach.

Epictetus

#97. Nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgment alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress.

Epictetus

#98. Conduct yourself in all matters, grand and public or small and domestic, in accordance with the laws of nature. Harmonizing your will with nature should be your utmost ideal.

Epictetus

#99. Taking account of the value of externals, you see, comes at some cost to the value of one's own character.

Epictetus

#100. Most people are impulsive, however, and having committed to the thing, they persist, just making more confusion for themselves and others until it all end in mutual recrimination.

Epictetus