Epictetus Quotes
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Silence is safer than speech.
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First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
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It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.
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It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.
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If you can make music with someone you don't need words. If you wish to be a writer, write.
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Let thy speech of God be renewed day by day, aye, rather than thy meat and drink.
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Unremarkable lives are marked by the fear of not looking capable when trying something new.
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On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use.
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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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Whoever wants to be free, therefore, let him not want or avoid anything that is up to others. Otherwise he will necessarily be a slave.
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Do not strive for things occurring to occur as you wish, but wish the things occurring as they occur, and you will flow well.
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Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.
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Remember that you are in actor in a play of such a kind that the author chooses...For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you; but to select the part belongs to another.
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Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.
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I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.
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Some of their faults men readily admit, but others not so readily.
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And are all profited by what they hear, or only some among them? So that it seems that there is an art of hearing as well as one of speaking. (81).
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Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions. Vigilantly practice polite indifference to that which we can't control. Your happiness can only be found within.
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A half-hearted spirit has no power. Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Average people enter into their endeavors headlong and without care.
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Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
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If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault... Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.
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The best place to get help is from yourself.
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One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.
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Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor avoid anything which depends on others: if he does not observe this rule, he must be a slave.