Epictetus Quotes
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He is free who lives as he wishes to live; who is neither subject to compulsion nor to hindrance, nor to force; whose movements to action are not impeded, whose desires attain their purpose, and who does not fall into that which he would avoid.
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Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.
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He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.
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It is not a demonstration of kindness or friendship to the people we care about to join them in indulging in wrongheaded, negative feelings. We do a better service to ourselves and others by remaining detached and avoiding melodramatic reactions.
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If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
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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?
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Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.
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If someone irritates you, it is only your own response that is irritating you. Therefore, when anyone seems to be provoking you, remember that it is only your judgment of the incident that provokes you.
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Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.
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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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Renew every day your conversation with God: Do this even in preference to eating. Think more often of God than you breathe.
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No matter what happens, it is within my power to turn it to my advantage.
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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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Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit.
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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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Act well your given part; the choice rests not with you.
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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.
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When you actively engage in gradually refining yourself, you retreat from your lazy ways of covering yourself or making excuses. Instead of feeling a persistent current of low-level shame, you move forward by using the creative possibilities of this moment, your current situation.
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No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?
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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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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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Wisdom means understanding without any doubt that circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they may. People behave as they will.
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There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
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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.