Epictetus Quotes
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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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It is wicked to withdraw from being useful to the needy, and cowardly to give way to the worthless.
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We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us.
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There is a fine circumstance connected with the character of a Cynic,-that he must be beaten like an ass, and yet when beaten must love those who beat him, as the father, as the brother of all.
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Try not to react merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view. Compose yourself.
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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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A ship should not be held by a single anchor; neither should life depend upon a single hope.
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When you have decided that a thing ought to be done and are doing it, never avoid bein seen doing it, though many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it. For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly?
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Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
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If you wish to be a writer, write.
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Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.
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Men are not worried by things, but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things.
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Confident because of our caution.
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The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.
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When your thoughts, words, and deeds form a seamless fabric, you streamline your efforts and thus eliminate worry and dread.
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In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.
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There is only one thing for which God has sent me into the world, and that is to develop every kind of virtue or strength, and there is nothing in all the world that I cannot use for this purpose.
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Never say of anything I have lost it, only say that I have given it back.
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Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing?... what do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you?... If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that.
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It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?
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Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.
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He who is not happy with little will never be happy with much.
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When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is set before us; and were one to call upon his host to set fish upon the table or sweet things, he would be deemed absurd. Yet in a word, we ask the Gods for what they do not give; and that, although they have given us so many things! (35).
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Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects.