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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.
Epictetus -
Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.
Epictetus
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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.
Epictetus -
There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
Epictetus -
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.
Epictetus -
It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.
Epictetus -
When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.
Epictetus -
Dare to look up to God and say, Deal with me in the future as Thou wilt; I am of the same mind as Thou art; I am Thine; I refuse nothing that pleases Thee; lead me where Thou wilt; clothe me in any dress Thou choosest.
Epictetus
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Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.
Epictetus -
Act well your given part; the choice rests not with you.
Epictetus -
If you set your heart upon philosophy, you must straightway prepare yourself to be laughed at and mocked by many who will say Behold a philosopher arisen among us! or How came you by that brow of scorn? But do you cherish no scorn, but hold to those things which seem to you the best, as one set by God in that place. Remember too, that if you abide in those ways, those who first mocked you, the same shall afterwards reverence you; but if you yield to them, you will be laughed at twice as much as before.
Epictetus -
O slavish man! will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his Father, as being a son from the same stock, and of the same high descent? But if you chance to be placed in some superior station, will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?
Epictetus -
Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.
Epictetus -
A vulgar man, in any ill that happens to him, blames others; a novice in philosophy blames himself; and a philosopher blames neither, the one nor the other.
Epictetus
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What will the world be quite overturned when you die?
Epictetus -
Renew every day your conversation with God: Do this even in preference to eating. Think more often of God than you breathe.
Epictetus -
Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.
Epictetus -
It has been ordained that there be summer and winter, abundance and dearth, virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole, and (Zeus) has given each of us a body, property, and companions.
Epictetus -
Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.
Epictetus -
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).
Epictetus
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Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men. (3).
Epictetus -
If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.
Epictetus -
Ruin and recovering are both from within.
Epictetus -
Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
Epictetus