Epictetus Quotes
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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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If your heart is quite set upon a crown, make and put on one of roses, for it will make the prettier appearance.
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Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.
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If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy felicity and constancy of good.
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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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In trying to please other people, we find ourselves misdirected toward what lies outside our sphere of influence. In doing so, we lose our hold on our lifes purpose.
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What is a good person? One who achieves tranquillity by having formed the habit of asking on every occasion, "what is the right thing to do now?"
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Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.
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Do nothing in a depressed mood, nor as one afflicted, nor as thinking that you are in misery, for no one compels you to that.
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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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Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.
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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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The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.
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Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.
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You have not stirred my spirit. For what can I see in you to stir me, as a spirited horse will stir a judge of horses? Your body? That you maltreat. Your dress? That is luxurious. Your behavior, your look?-Nothing whatsoever. (81).
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To pay homage to beauty is to admire Nature; to admire Nature is to worship God.
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True instruction is this: -to learn to wish that each thing should come to pass as it does. And how does it come to pass? As the Disposer has disposed it. Now He has disposed that there should be summer and winter, and plenty and dearth, and vice and virtue, and all such opposites, for the harmony of the whole. (26).
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You lose only the things you have.
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Refuse altogether to take an oath if you can, if not, as far as may be. (166).
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All human beings seek the happy life, but many confuse the means - for example, wealth and status - with that life itself. This misguided focus on the means to a good life makes people get further from the happy life. The really worthwhile things are the virtuous activities that make up the happy life, not the external means that may seem to produce it.
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If you would cure anger, do not feed it. Say to yourself: 'I used to be angry every day; then every other day; now only every third or fourth day.' When you reach thirty days offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods.
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What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.
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When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it.
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If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Men be true, what remains for men to do but as Socrates did:-never, when asked one’s country, to answer, 'I am an Athenian or a Corinthian,' but 'I am a citizen of the world.' (15).