Epictetus Quotes
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All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.
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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 you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery-beware of enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For Vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery. (41).
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All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means - for example, wealth and status - with that life itself. This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get further from the happy life. The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.
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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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We need to regularly stop and take stock; to sit down and determine within ourselves which things are worth valuing and which things are not; which risks are worth the cost and which are not. Even the most confusing or hurtful aspects of life can be made more tolerable by clear seeing and by choice.
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It is the sign of a dull mind to dwell upon the cares of the body, to prolong exercise, eating and drinking and other bodily functions. These things are best done by the way; all your attention must be given to the mind.
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Freedom isn't the right or ability to do whatever you please. Freedom comes from understanding the limits of our own power and the inherent limits set in place by nature. By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, you become truly free.
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We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.
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Consider the bigger picture.....think things through and fully commit!
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The foolish and the uneducated have little use for freedom. Only the educated are free.
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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 flourishing life cannot be achieved until we moderate our desires and see how superficial and fleeting they are.
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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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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.
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In order to please others, we loose our hold on our life's purpose.
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If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.
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True instruction is this: -to learn to wish that each thing should come to pass as it does. And how does it come to pass? As the Disposer has disposed it. Now He has disposed that there should be summer and winter, and plenty and dearth, and vice and virtue, and all such opposites, for the harmony of the whole. (26).
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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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We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it; but none of us is troubled about a paralysis of the soul.
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First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
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The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
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There is nothing good or evil save in the will.
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No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.