Epictetus Quotes
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These reasonings are unconnected: "I am richer than you, therefore I am better"; "I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better." The connection is rather this: "I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours;" "I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours." But you, after all, are neither property nor style.
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If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?
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Does a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detracting? Consider with thyself whether his reproaches are true. If they are not, consider that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, though he hates what thou appearest to be.
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He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.
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Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to a humble and grateful mind.
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Cowardice, the dread of what will happen.
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Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.
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Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed).
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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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Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.
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To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.
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What disturbs and alarms man are not the things, but his opinions and fancies about the things.
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A thing either is what it appears to be; or it is not, but yet appears to be; or it is, but does not appear to be; or it is not, and does not appear to be.
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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. (5) tr. George Long (1888).
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It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it.
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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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In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.
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Confidence in nonsense is a requirement for the creative process.
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Common and vulgar people ascribe all ills that they feel to others; people of little wisdom ascribe to themselves; people of much wisdom, to no one.
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There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
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Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.
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Ruin and recovering are both from within.
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'My brother ought not to have treated me thus.' True: but he must see to that. However he may treat me, I must deal rightly by him. This is what lies with me, what none can hinder. (97).
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If I was a nightingale I would sing like a nightingale; if a swan, like a swan. But since I am a rational creature my role is to praise God.