Epictetus Quotes
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Ruin and recovering are both from within.
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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.
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What will the world be quite overturned when you die?
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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.
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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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Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.
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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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When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.
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A man that seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.
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If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.
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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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It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.
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It is not my place in society that makes me well off, but my judgements, and these I can carry with me... These alone are my own and cannot be taken away.
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Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men. (3).
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If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
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If you think you control things that are in the control of others, you will lament. You will be disturbed and you will blame both gods and men.
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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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If what charms you is nothing but abstract principles, sit down and turn them over quietly in your mind: but never dub yourself a Philosopher.
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No living being is held by anything so strongly as its own needs.
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Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices me wherever I am or whatever I do.
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To pay homage to beauty is to admire Nature; to admire Nature is to worship God.
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Our duties naturally emerge form such fundamental relations as our families, neighborhoods, workplaces, our state or nation. Make it your regular habit to consider your roles-parent, child, neighbor, citizen, leader-and the natural duties that arise from them. Once you know who you are and to whom you are linked, you will know what to do.
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Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.
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Crows pick out the eyes of the dead, when the dead have no longer need of them; but flatterers mar the soul of the living, and her eyes they blind.