Epictetus Quotes
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Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.
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Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.
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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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It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
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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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The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
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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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To pay homage to beauty is to admire Nature; to admire Nature is to worship God.
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It’s time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become.
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If your heart is quite set upon a crown, make and put on one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance.
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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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Freedom is secured not by the fulfillment of one's desires, but by the removal of desire.
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Pleasure, like a kind of bait, is thrown before everything which is really bad, and easily allures greedy souls to the hook of perdition.
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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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We should do everything both cautiously and confidently at the same time.
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No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.
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Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices me wherever I am or whatever I do.
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You have not stirred my spirit. For what can I see in you to stir me, as a spirited horse will stir a judge of horses? Your body? That you maltreat. Your dress? That is luxurious. Your behavior, your look?-Nothing whatsoever. (81).
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If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.
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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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Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.
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Getting distracted by trifles is the easiest thing in the world… Focus on your main duty.
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In order to please others, we loose our hold on our life's purpose.
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Lampis the ship owner, on being asked how he acquired his great wealth, replied, My great wealth was acquired with no difficulty, but my small wealth, my first gains, with much labor.