Epictetus Quotations | Page 2

We should do everything both cautiously and confidently at the same time.

Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person, but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.

It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

Getting distracted by trifles is the easiest thing in the world… Focus on your main duty

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?

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

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.

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.

What disturbs people, these are not things, but the judgments relating to things

With ills unending strives the putter off.

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

What will the world be quite overturned when you die?

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.

Ask yourself, "How are my thoughts, words and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbour, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens?"

What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.

If anyone should tell you that a particular person has spoken critically of you, don't bother with excuses or defenses. Just smile and reply, "I guess that person doesn't know about all my other faults. Otherwise, he wouldn't have mentioned only these."

If you have anything better to be doing when death overtakes you, get to work on that.

In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it

A thing either is what it appears to be; or it is not, but yet appears to be; or it is, but does not appear to be; or it is not, and does not appear to be.

The Beginning of Philosophy is a Consciousness of your own Weakness and inability in necessary things.

Opportunity beckons more surely when misfortune comes upon a person than it ever does when that person is riding the crest of a wave of success. It sharpens a person's wits, if that person will let it, enabling him or her to see more clearly and evaluate situations with a more knowledgeable judgment.

Remember that you are an actor in a drama of such sort as the Author chooses: if short, then in a short one; if long, then in a long one. If it be His pleasure that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, see that you act it well. For this is your business, to act well the given part. But to choose it belongs to Another.

The soul is unwillingly deprived of truth.

No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or child, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated.

It were no slight attainment could we merely fulfil what the nature of man implies.

Remember that you are but an actor, acting whatever part the Master has ordained. It may be short or it may be long. If he wishes you to represent a poor man, do so heartily; if a cripple, or a magistrate, or a private man, in each case act your part with honor.

The soul's impurity consists in bad judgments, and purification consists in producing in it right judgments, and the pure soul is one which has right judgments.

Who is not attracted by bright and pleasant children, to prattle, to creep, and to play with them?

Ask yourself: Does this appearance (of events) concern the things that are within my own control or those that are not? If it concerns anything outside your control, train yourself not to worry about it.

Consider the bigger picture.....think things through and fully commit!

Remember that you are an actor in a play, and that the Playwright chooses the manner of it: If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man. For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well. The choice of the cast is Another's.

It is a mark of a mean capacity to spend much time on the things which concern the body, such as much exercise, much eating, much drinking, much easing of the body, much copulation. But these things should be done as subordinate things: and let all your care be directed to the mind.

It is your own convictions which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.

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).

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.

Confident because of our caution

Confidence in nonsense is a requirement for the creative process.

Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? What sinews are those? - A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.

No man is disturbed by things, but by his opinion about things.

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

We all carry the seeds of greatness within us, but we need an image as a point of focus in order that they may sprout.

To adorn our characters by the charm of an amiable nature shows at once a lover of beauty and a lover of man.

Living a good life leads to enduring happiness. Goodness in and of itself is the practice AND the reward.

If you see anybody wail and complain, call him a slave, though he be clad in purple.

Try not to react merely in the moment. Pull back from the situation. Take a wider view. Compose yourself.

Pleasure, like a kind of bait, is thrown before everything which is really bad, and easily allures greedy souls to the hook of perdition.

To know that you do not know and to be willing to admit that you do not know without sheepishly apologizing is real strength and sets the stage for learning and progress in any endeavor.

The best place to get help is from yourself.

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off-see, it doesn't bite.

Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself. For both ruin and recovery are from within.

To get or not to get what we desire can be equally disappointing.

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

Even as the Sun doth not wait for prayers and incantations to rise, but shines forth and is welcomed by all: so thou also wait not for clapping of hands and shouts and praise to do thy duty; nay, do good of thine own accord, and thou wilt be loved like the Sun.

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?

If you wish to write, write.

You are a principal work, a fragment of [Goddess herself], you have in yourself a part of [her]. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth?

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.

If you can make music with someone you don't need words. If you wish to be a writer, write.

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

Neither the victories of the Olympic Games nor those achieved in battles make the man happy. The only victories that make him happy are those achieved against himself. Temptations and tests are combats. You have beaten one, two, many times; still fight. If you defeat at last you will be happy your entire life, as if you have always defeated.

Desire and happiness cannot live together.

Give me by all means the shorter and nobler life, instead of one that is longer but of less account!

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.

Do not try to seem wise to others.

Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to.

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I, too... But first mark the conditions and the consequences. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or not, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and wine at your will. Then, in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, to be severely thrashed, and after all of these things, to be defeated.

Difficulty shows what men are.

Concerning the Gods, there are those who deny the very existence of the Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself not has forethought far anything. A third party attribute to it existence and forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters, not for anything that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on earth as well as in heaven, but only in general, and not with respect to each individual. A fifth, of whom were Ulysses and Socrates, are those that cry: -- I move not without Thy knowledge!

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things. Don't wish to be thought to know anything; and even if you appear to be somebody important to others, distrust yourself. For, it is difficult to both keep your faculty of choice in a state conformable to nature, and at the same time acquire external things. But while you are careful about the one, you must of necessity neglect the other

Events do not just happen, but arrive by appointment.

Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, �He who is content.

Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

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.

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.

When you let go of your attention for a little while, do not think you may recover it whenever you please.

Don't regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours.

A half-hearted spirit has no power. Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Average people enter into their endeavors headlong and without care.

Freedom is secured not by the fulfillment of one's desires, but by the removal of desire.

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?

We need to regularly stop and take stock; to sit down and determine within ourselves which things are worth valuing and which things are not; which risks are worth the cost and which are not. Even the most confusing or hurtful aspects of life can be made more tolerable by clear seeing and by choice.

I am not eternity, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is of the day.

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

Let death be daily before your eyes, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.

Anything worth putting off is worth abandoning altogether.

When men are unhappy, they do not imagine they can ever cease to be so; and when some calamity has fallen on them, they do not see how they can get rid of it. Nevertheless, both arrive; and the gods have ordered it so, in the end men seek it from the gods

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.

You lose only the things you have

It doesn't take much to lose everything, just a little departure from reason

What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.

God has entrusted me with myself. No man is free who is not master of himself. A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

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.

You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.

Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?

-….when things seem to have reached that stage, merely say “I won’t play any longer”, and take your departure; but if you stay, stop lamenting.

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

I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.