Epictetus Quotes

I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?

It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens." Epictetus

It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance

It is my business, to manage carefully and dexterously whatever happens

Never say of anything I have lost it, only say that I have given it back.

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.

Learn to distinguish what you can and can't control. Within our control are our own opinions, aspirations, desires and the things that repel us. They are directly subject to our influence.

Everything has two handles,-one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.

No man is free who is not master of himself... Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose?

We must ever bear in mind --that apart from the will there is nothing good or bad, and that we must not try to anticipate or to direct events, but merely to accept them with intelligence.

Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men!

Consider first the nature of the business in hand; then examine thy own nature, whether thou hast strength to undertake it.

Do not laugh much or often or unrestrainedly.

Focus not on what he or she does, but on keeping to your higher purpose. Your own purpose should seek harmony with nature itself. For this is the true road to freedom.

What disturbs and alarms man are not the things, but his opinions and fancies about the things.

Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.

When you want to hear a philosopher, do not say, 'You say nothing to me'; only show yourself worthy or fit to hear, and then you will see how you will move the speaker.

Think of God more often than thou breathest.

It is wicked to withdraw from being useful to the needy, and cowardly to give way to the worthless.

What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others.

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.

If you would be well spoken of, learn to be well-spoken; and having learnt to be well- spoken, strive also to be well-doing; so shall you succeed in being well spoken of.

Some of their faults men readily admit, but others not so readily.

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.

Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit

It is not things in themselves which trouble us, but our opinions of things.

In theory it is easy to convince an ignorant person; in actual life, men not only object to offer themselves to be convinced, but hate the man who has convinced them.

No living being is held by anything so strongly as its own needs.

Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.

As a man, casting off worn out garments taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, entereth into ones that are new.

And have you not received faculties which will enable you to bear all that happens to you? Have you not received greatness of spirit? Have you not received courage? Have you not received endurance?

If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.

Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?

The soul is unwillingly deprived of truth.

There is only one thing for which God has sent me into the world, and that is to develop every kind of virtue or strength, and there is nothing in all the world that I cannot use for this purpose.

What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?

To a longer and worse life, a shorter and better is by all means to be preferred.

Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?

Fortune is an evil chain to the body, and vice to the soul.

Pain or pleasure? I say pleasure.

Let no man think that he is loved by any who loveth none.

Let thy speech of God be renewed day by day, aye, rather than thy meat and drink.

Think of God oftener than you breathe.

Do not so much be ashamed of that disgrace which proceeds from men's opinion as fly from that which comes from the truth.

It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.

The soul that companies with virtue is like an ever-flowing source. It is a pure, clear, and wholesome draught, sweet, rich and generous of its store, that injures not, neither destroys.

The materials are indifferent, but the use we make of them is not a matter of indifference.

Remember that you are in actor in a play of such a kind that the author chooses...For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you; but to select the part belongs to another.

In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught;but in life there are many things to draw us aside.

It is not events that disturb the minds of men, but the view they take of them.