Epictetus Quotes
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The universe is but one great city, full of beloved ones, divine and human, by nature endeared to each other.
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Remember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's.
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Everything has two handles,-one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.
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Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?
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I am always content with what happens; for I know that what God chooses is better than what I choose.
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We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
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By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free.
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This whole world is one great City, and one is the substance whereof it is fashioned: a certain period indeed there needs must be, while these give place to those; some must perish for others to succeed; some move and some abide: yet all is full of friends-first God, then Men, whom Nature hath bound by ties of kindred each to each. (123).
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Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person, but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.
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As you think, so you become.....Our busy minds are forever jumping to conclusions, manufacturing and interpreting signs that aren't there.
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It is better to advise than upbraid, for the one corrects the erring; the other only convicts them.
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Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.
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No great thing is created suddenly.
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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
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What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others.
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Consider first the nature of the business in hand; then examine thy own nature, whether thou hast strength to undertake it.
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Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.
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Confidence in nonsense is a requirement for the creative process.
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It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.
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Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcome.
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Nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgment alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress.
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When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.
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A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.
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If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other.