Epictetus Quotes
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Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.
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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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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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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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If you can make music with someone you don't need words. If you wish to be a writer, write.
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Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with them?
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Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.
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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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First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
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The best place to get help is from yourself.
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Unremarkable lives are marked by the fear of not looking capable when trying something new.
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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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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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Wish that everything should come about just as it does.
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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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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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Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig.
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Some of their faults men readily admit, but others not so readily.
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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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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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It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.
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Contentment comes not so much from great wealth as from few wants.