Epictetus Quotes
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To be getting an education means this: to be learning what is your own, and what is not your own.
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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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Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.
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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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Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig.
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I am not eternity, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is of the day.
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No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time. Give your best and always be kind.
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When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it, never shun being seen doing it, even though the multitude should be likely to judge the matter amiss. For if you are not acting rightly, shun the act itself; if rightly, however, why fear misplaced censure? (172).
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Never say about anything, "I have lost it," but only "I have given it back." Is your child dead? It has been given back. Is your wife dead? She has been returned.
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What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.
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You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.
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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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Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with 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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To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.
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Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time, nor does it take away the freedom of speech which proceeds from justice; but it gives to us the knowledge of what is just and lawful, separating from them the unjust and refuting them.
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Concerning the Gods, there are those who deny the very existence of the Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself not has forethought far anything. A third party attribute to it existence and forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters, not for anything that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on earth as well as in heaven, but only in general, and not with respect to each individual. A fifth, of whom were Ulysses and Socrates, are those that cry: -- I move not without Thy knowledge!
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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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One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.
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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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Silence is safer than speech.
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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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It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.