Epictetus Quotes
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To be getting an education means this: to be learning what is your own, and what is not your own.
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Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words.
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No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or child, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated.
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You become what you give your attention to...If you yourself don't choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.
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Only the educated are free.
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Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
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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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People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.
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God has entrusted me with myself.
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It is more necessary for the soul to be cured than the body; for it is better to die than to live badly.
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It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.
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It is not he who gives abuse that affronts, but the view that we take of it as insulting; so that when one provokes you it is your own opinion which is provoking.
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Living a good life leads to enduring happiness. Goodness in and of itself is the practice AND the reward.
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'But to be hanged-is that not unendurable?' Even so, when a man feels that it is reasonable, he goes off and hangs himself.
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A soul that makes virtue its companion is like an over-flowing well, for it is clean and pellucid, sweet and wholesome, open to all, rich, blameless and indestructible.
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Freedom is the name of virtue: Slavery, of vice…. None is a slave whose acts are free.
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Opportunity beckons more surely when misfortune comes upon a person than it ever does when that person is riding the crest of a wave of success. It sharpens a person's wits, if that person will let it, enabling him or her to see more clearly and evaluate situations with a more knowledgeable judgment.
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In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.
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The beginning of philosophy is the recognition of the conflict between opinions.
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Freedom and slavery, the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will.
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If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you? (28) tr. Elizabeth Carter
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When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it. It is not the things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance. Things and people are not what we wish them to be nor are they what they seem to be. They are what they are.
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Ask yourself, "How are my thoughts, words and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbour, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens?"
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Try not to react merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view. Compose yourself.