If you would improve, submit to be considered wihout sense and foolish with respect to externals. Wish to be considered to know nothing; and if you shall seem to someone to be a person of importance, distrust yourself.
EpictetusIt 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.
EpictetusIf a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?
EpictetusConcerning 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!
Epictetus