Epictetus Quotes
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If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played a poor figure in that, and neglected one that is within your powers. (79).
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What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to choose it belongs to someone else.
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What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.
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The soul's impurity consists in bad judgements, and purification consists in producing in it right judgements, and the pure soul is one which has right judgements, for this alone is proof against confusion and pollution in its functions.
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Pain or pleasure? I say pleasure.
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Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly without our own control.
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If you see anybody wail and complain, call him a slave, though he be clad in purple.
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Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.
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Appear to know only this,-never to fail nor fall.
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Be not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say, 'Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you.'
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Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.
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Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents." Translation by Sharon Lebell.
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What is learned without pleasure is forgotten without remorse.
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He is a drunkard who takes more than three glasses though he be not drunk.
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It is not a demonstration of kindness or friendship to the people we care about to join them in indulging in wrongheaded, negative feelings. We do a better service to ourselves and others by remaining detached and avoiding melodramatic reactions.
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There is nothing good or evil save in the will.
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Refuse altogether to take an oath if you can, if not, as far as may be. (166).
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What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.
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Although we can't control which roles are assigned to us, it must be our business to act our given role as best we possibly can and to refrain from complaining about it. Where ever you find yourself and in whatever circumstances, give an impeccable performance.
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No greater thing 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.
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All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.
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You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.
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First tell yourself what you want to be, then do what you need to do.
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To make anything a habit, do it; to not make it a habit, do not do it; to unmake a habit, do something else in place of it.