Epictetus Quotes

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

Never say about anything, "I have lost it," but only "I have given it back." Is your child dead? It has been given back. Is your wife dead? She has been returned.

Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.

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?

Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.

If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

Cowardice, the dread of what will happen.

It is the part of an uneducated person to blame others where he himself fares ill; to blame himself is the part of one whose education has begun; to blame neither another nor his own self is the part of one whose education is already complete.

We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it; but none of us is troubled about a paralysis of the soul.

Once you know who you are and to whom you are linked, you will know what to do

Be free from grief not through insensibility like the irrational animals, nor through want of thought like the foolish, but like a man of virtue by having reason as the consolation of grief.

It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.

The foolish and the uneducated have little use for freedom. Only the educated are free.

If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase. At first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not angry: "I used to be angry every day, then every other day: next, every two, then every three days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days, sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving.

At this time is freedom anything but the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

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

Don't demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.

Happiness and personal fulfillment are the natural consequences of doing the right thing.

Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else. Tell me then, you men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No one who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do you wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in tension? By no means. No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but whoever is delivered from sorrows or fears or anxieties, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude.

Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

Bid a singer in a chorus, Know Thyself; and will he not turn for the knowledge to the others, his fellows in the chorus, and to his harmony with them?

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

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

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

Nothing great comes into being all at once.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

Nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgment alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress.

Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.

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

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

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?"

A man that seeks truth and loves it must be reckoned precious to any human society.

What will the world be quite overturned when you die?

When the Idea, of any Pleasure strikes your Imagination... let that time be employed in making a just Computation between, the duration of the Pleasure, and that of the Repentance sure to follow it.

If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.

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

No great thing is created suddenly.

It is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's own unless each day he maintains it and works it out in his life.

Have the wisdom to know what cannot be changed, and the strength to change what can.

If anyone is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault... Nothing else is the cause of anxiety or loss of tranquility except our own opinion.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

Freedom isn't the right or ability to do whatever you please. Freedom comes from understanding the limits of our own power and the inherent limits set in place by nature. By accepting life's limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, you become truly free.

The appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig.