Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.
EpictetusWhen you let go of your attention for a little while, do not think you may recover it whenever you please.
EpictetusAll 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.
EpictetusIt is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself.
Epictetus