Epictetus Quotes

You only have to doze a moment, and all is lost. For ruin and salvation both have their source inside you.

Difficulties are things that show what men are.

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren’t a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you’ll be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better. From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do – now.

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

Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg but my will, not even Zeus himself can overpower.

Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.

If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on is way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired but by controlling the desire.

Practice yourself for heaven's sake in little things and thence proceed to greater.

If you want to make progress, put up with being perceived as ignorant or naive in worldly matters, don't aspire to a reputation for sagacity. If you do impress others as somebody, don't altogether believe it. You have to realize, it isn't easy to keep your will in agreement with nature, as well as externals. Caring about the one inevitably means you are going to shortchange the other.

Isn’t reading a kind of preparation for life?’ But life is composed of things other than books. It is as if an athlete, on entering the stadium, were to complain that he’s not outside exercising.This was the goal of your exercise, of your weights, your practice ring and your training partners.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

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!

Fortify yourself with contentment for this is an impregnable fortress.

Once I was liable to the same mistakes, but, thanks to God, no longer …’Well, isn’t it just as worthwhile to have devoted and applied yourself to this goal as to have read or written fifty pages?

What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun slavery- beware enslaving others! If you can endure to do that, one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.

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

Ask not that events should happen as you will but let your will be that events should happen as they do and you shall have peace.

Only the educated are free.

Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents." Translation by Sharon Lebell

The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter.

First say to yourself what you would beand then do what you have to do.

Freedom is not archived by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life.

So what oppresses and scares us? It is our own thoughts, obviously, What overwhelms people when they are about to leaves friends, family, old haunts and their accustomed way of life? Thoughts.

Why do you want to read anyway – for the sake of amusement or mere erudition? Those are poor, fatuous pretexts. Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn’t make you peaceful, what good is it?

What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar - and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?

Ruin and recovery are both from within.

Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn’t make you peaceful, what good is it?

If you wish to be a writer, write.

Don't put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.

I cannot call somebody ‘hard-working’ knowing only that they read and write. Even if ‘all night long’ is added, I cannot say it – not until I know the focus of all this energy.

Nothing great is created suddenly any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom then bear fruit then ripen.

Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason.

If you wish to live a life free from sorrow think of what is going to happen as if it had already happened.

For in this Case, we are not to give Credit to the Many, who say, that none ought to be educated but the Free; but rather to the Philosophers, who say, that the Well-educated alone are free.

So when the crisis is upon you remember that God like a trainer of wrestlers has matched you with a tough and stalwart antagonist... that you may prove a victor at the Great Games.

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.

It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.

An ignorant person is inclined to blame others for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man never has to blame another or himself.

He who exercises wisdom, exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Practice yourself in little things and thence proceed to greater.

First learn the meaning of what you say and then speak.

If, on the other hand, we read books entitled On Impulse not just out of idle curiosity, but in order to exercise impulse correctly; books entitled On Desire and On Aversion so as not to fail to get what we desire or fall victim to what we would rather avoid; and books entitled On Moral Obligation in order to honour our relationships and never do anything that clashes or conflicts with this principle; then we wouldn’t get frustrated and grow impatient with our reading. Instead we would be satisfied to act accordingly. And rather than reckon, as we are used to doing, ‘How many lines I read, or wrote, today,’ we would pass in review how ‘I applied impulse today the way the philosophers recommend

God has entrusted me with myself.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded but the fear of pain or death.

Here is the beginning of philosophy: a recognition of the conflicts between men a search for their cause a condemnation of mere opinion .. . and the discovery of a standard of judgement.

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

On the occasion of every accident that befalls you ... inquire what power you have for turning it to use.

It isn't death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest.

Philosophy does not claim to secure for us anything outside our control. Otherwise it would be taking on matters that do not concern it. For as wood is the material of the carpenter, and marble that of the sculptor, so the subject matter of the art of life is the life of the self.

Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.

Freedom, you see, is having events go in accordance with our will, never contrary to it.

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

As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations tob e induced to rise, but immediately shines and is saluted by all, so do you also not wait for clappings of hands and shouts of praise tob e induced to do good, but be a doer of good voluntarily and you will be beloved as much as the sun.