Epictetus Quotes

And yet, while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others: to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends and slaves. [15] And, being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them.

It isn't possible to change your behaviour and still be the same person you were before.

Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas.

Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.

ضع نُصْبَ عينيك، في كل حين، الموتَ والمنفى وكلَّ ما يبدو مرعبًا، ولكن اجعل الموتَ أوَّلَها جميعًا. عندئذٍ لن تفكِّر أبدًا في أي شيءٍ دنيء، ولن تتوق إلى أيِّ شيءٍ تَوْقًا زائدًا عن الحد.

If, however, I liberate myself from my master – which is to say, from the emotions that make my master frightening – what troubles can I have? No man is my master any longer.

I must be exiled; but is there anything to keep me from going with a smile, calm and self-composed?

[8] Yet if we place the good in right choice, the preservation of our relationships itself becomes a good. And besides, he who gives up certain external things achieves the good through that. [9] ‘My father’s depriving me of money.’ But he isn’t causing you any harm. ‘My brother is going to get the greater share of the land.’ Let him have as much as he wishes. He won’t be getting any of your decency, will he, or of your loyalty, or of your brotherly love? [10] For who can disinherit you of possessions such as those? Not even Zeus; nor would he wish to, but rather he has placed all of that in my own power, even as he had it himself, free from hindrance, compulsion, and restraint.

Don’t let the force of the impression when first it hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it, ‘Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent.

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

you are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weakness.

If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest.

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

If you act rashly, without regard to consequences, you may defeat your purposes.

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?