Epictetus Quotes
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If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.
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First tell yourself what you want to be, then do what you need to do.
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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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Don’t consent to be hurt and you won’t be hurt – this is a choice over which you have control.
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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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Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men. (3).
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If a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any defense (answer) to what has been told you: but reply, The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only. (33) tr. George Long (1888).
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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 thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.
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Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
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It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.
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To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
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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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At every occasion in your life, do not forget to commune with yourself and ask of yourself how you can profit by it.
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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.
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Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.
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Against specious appearances we must set clear convictions, bright and ready for use. When death appears as an evil, we ought immediately to remember that evils are things to be avoided, but death is inevitable.
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It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.
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What will the world be quite overturned when you die?
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Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.
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Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.
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Desire and happiness cannot live together.
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Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
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Seek to be the purple thread in the long white gown.