Epictetus Quotes
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Law intends indeed to do service to human life, but it is not able when men do not choose to accept her services; for it is only in those who are obedient to her that she displays her special virtue.
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It is not events that disturb the minds of men, but the view they take of them.
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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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It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
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Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
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All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.
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We should do everything both cautiously and confidently at the same time.
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Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
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No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.
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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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We must ever bear in mind --that apart from the will there is nothing good or bad, and that we must not try to anticipate or to direct events, but merely to accept them with intelligence.
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Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself. For both ruin and recovery are from within.
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To get or not to get what we desire can be equally disappointing.
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What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.
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We must be afraid of neither poverty nor exile nor imprisonment; of fear itself only should we be afraid.
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It is not the events but our viewpoint toward events that is the determining factor. We ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than removing tumors and abscesses from the body.
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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.
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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 we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?
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He is a drunkard who takes more than three glasses though he be not drunk.
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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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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?
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Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control. Sickness may challenge your body. But are you merely your body? Lameness may impede your legs. But you are not merely your legs. Your will is bigger than your legs. Your will needn't be affected by an incident unless you let it.
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To a longer and worse life, a shorter and better is by all means to be preferred.