Epictetus Quotes
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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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Never look for your work in one place and your progress in another.
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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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Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.
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No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.
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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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Every place is safe to him who lives with justice.
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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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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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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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You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.
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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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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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When our friends are present we ought to treat them well; and when they are absent, to speak of them well.
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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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Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.
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Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.
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Men are not troubled by things themselves, but by their thoughts about them.
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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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Happiness is an equivalent for all troublesome things.
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The soul is unwillingly deprived of truth.
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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.
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When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.
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It is my business, to manage carefully and dexterously whatever happens.