Epictetus Quotes
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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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Some things are up to us [eph' hêmin] and some things are not up to us. Our opinions are up to us, and our impulses, desires, aversions–in short, whatever is our own doing. Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or our public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our own doing.
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Each man's life is a kind of campaign, and a long and complicated one at that. You have to maintain the character of a soldier, and do each separate act at the bidding of the General.
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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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Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.
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Upon all occasions we ought to have these maxims ready at hand:
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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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To get or not to get what we desire can be equally disappointing.
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You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.
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What is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction.
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We should do everything both cautiously and confidently at the same time.
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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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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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No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?
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'If the room is smoky, if only moderately, I will stay; if there is too much smoke I will go. Remember this, keep a firm hold on it, the door is always open.'
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To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, human beings have a duty of care to all fellow humans. The person who followed these precepts would achieve happiness.
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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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It is not reasonings that are wanted now; for there are books stuffed full of stoical reasonings.
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It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.
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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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So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I, too... But first mark the conditions and the consequences. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or not, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and wine at your will. Then, in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, to be severely thrashed, and after all of these things, to be defeated.
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When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
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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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As a man, casting off worn out garments taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, entereth into ones that are new.