Epictetus Quotes
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We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout.
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We should not have either a blunt knife or a freedom of speech which is ill-managed.
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You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit.
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Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.
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Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.
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It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.
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It was the first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word-on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray. (64).
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If then all things that grow, nay, our own bodies, are thus bound up with the whole, is not this still truer of our souls? And if our souls are bound up and in contact with God, as being very parts and fragments plucked from Himself, shall He not feel every movement of theirs as though it were His own, and belonging to His own nature? (36).
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Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise certain persons, though they be themselves evil. But to the Cynic conscience gives this power-not arms and guards. (119).
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Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. (1).
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If you would improve, submit to be considered wihout sense and foolish with respect to externals. Wish to be considered to know nothing; and if you shall seem to someone to be a person of importance, distrust yourself.
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It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.
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If thou wouldst make progress, be content to seem foolish and void of understanding with respect to outward things. Care not to be thought to know anything. If any should make account of thee, distrust thyself. (158).
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It doesn't take much to lose everything, just a little departure from reason.
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When you want to hear a philosopher, do not say, 'You say nothing to me'; only show yourself worthy or fit to hear, and then you will see how you will move the speaker. (81).
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We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.
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These are the signs of a wise man: to reprove nobody, to praise nobody, to blame nobody, nor even to speak of himself or his own merits.
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Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?
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When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, 'if Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.'
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The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
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Don't be concerned who is watching you. The triumphs and merits of others belong to them - as do yours to you. Make the most of what you've got.
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As it is pleasant to see the sea from the land, so it is pleasant for him who has escaped from troubles to think of them.
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What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.
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Why, then, do you walk as if you had swallowed a ramrod?