Epictetus Quotes
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You are a principal work, a fragment of [Goddess herself], you have in yourself a part of [her]. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth?
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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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Do not laugh much or often or unrestrainedly.
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Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for God made all men to enjoy felicity and peace.
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In prosperity it is very easy to find a friend; but in adversity it is the most difficult of all things.
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Every place is safe to him who lives with justice.
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From now on practice saying to everything that appears unpleasant: You are merely an appearance and NOT what you appear to be.
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Not even on finding himself in a well-ordered house does a man step forward and say to himself, I must be master here! Else the lord of that house takes notice of it, and, seeing him insolently giving orders, drags him forth and chastises him. So it is also in the great City, the World. Here also is there a Lord of the House, who orders all things... (110).
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No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whosoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties is at the same time delivered from servitude.
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Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.
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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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Remember that you are an actor in a drama of such sort as the Author chooses: if short, then in a short one; if long, then in a long one. If it be His pleasure that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, see that you act it well. For this is your business, to act well the given part. But to choose it belongs to Another.
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Never look for your work in one place and your progress in another.
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Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, 'I have lost it' and instead say, 'It has been returned to where it came from.' Why should it be any concern of yours who gives your things back to the world that gave them to you? The important thing is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it.
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No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.
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It is unreasonable to think we can earn rewards without being willing to pay their true price. It is always our choice whether or not we wish to pay the price for life's rewards.
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You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.
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It is hard to combine and unite these two qualities, the carefulness of one who is affected by circumstances, and the intrepidity of one who heeds them not. But it is not impossible: else were happiness also impossible.
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Does a Philosopher apply to people to come and hear him? does he not rather, of his own nature, attract those that will be benefited by him-like the sun that warms, and the food that sustains them? (120).
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Men are not troubled by things themselves, but by their thoughts about them.
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When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it, never shun being seen doing it, even though the multitude should be likely to judge the matter amiss. For if you are not acting rightly, shun the act itself; if rightly, however, why fear misplaced censure? (172).
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Happiness is an equivalent for all troublesome things.
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The soul is unwillingly deprived of truth.
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When our friends are present we ought to treat them well; and when they are absent, to speak of them well.