Epictetus Quotes
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Happiness is an equivalent for all troublesome things.
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Give thyself more diligently to reflection: know thyself: take counsel with the Godhead; without God put thine hand into nothing. (115).
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Watch yourself as you go about your daily business and later reflect on what you saw, trying to identify the sources of distress in your life and thinking about how to avoid that distress.
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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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He who is not happy with little will never be happy with much.
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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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It is a mark of a mean capacity to spend much time on the things which concern the body, such as much exercise, much eating, much drinking, much easing of the body, much copulation. But these things should be done as subordinate things: and let all your care be directed to the mind.
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Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.
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If a man would pursue Philosophy, his first task is to throw away conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he has a conceit that he already knows.
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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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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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Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.
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If what the philosophers say be true,-that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain,-so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.
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Do not laugh much or often or unrestrainedly.
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Once you know who you are and to whom you are linked, you will know what to do.
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Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.
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Happiness and personal fulfillment are the natural consequences of doing the right thing.
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No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.
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God has made all men to be happy.
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A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path-he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity. (63).
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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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Do not so much be ashamed of that disgrace which proceeds from men's opinion as fly from that which comes from the truth.
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You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero's shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'Appear by all means.' And when Florus inquired, 'But why do not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the question.'
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As in walking it is your great care not to run your foot upon a nail, or to tread awry, and strain your leg; so let it be in all the affairs of human life, not to hurt your mind or offend your judgment. And this rule, if observed carefully in all your deportment, will be a mighty security to you in your undertakings.