Epictetus Quotes

What's that you say friend? It's only my leg you will chain, not even God can conquer my will.

Ἰδιώτου στάσις καὶ χαρακτήρ· οὐδέποτε ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ προσδοκᾷ ὠφέλειαν ἢ βλάβην, ἀλλ' ἀπὸ τῶν ἔξω. φιλοσόφου στάσις καὶ χαρακτήρ· πᾶσαν ὠφέλειαν καὶ βλάβην ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ προσδοκᾷ.

Enchiridion 48, the handbook of Epictetus's teaching compiled by his student Arrian.

He didn’t care; it was not his skin he wanted to save, but the man of honour and integrity. These things are not open to compromise or negotiation.

This is the true athlete—the person in rigorous training against false impressions. Remain firm, you who suffer, don’t be kidnapped by your impressions! The struggle is great, the task divine—to gain mastery, freedom, happiness, and tranquility.

If you now neglect things and are lazy and are always making delay after delay and set one day after another as the day for paying attention to yourself, then without realizing it you will make no progress but will end up a non-philosopher all through life and death. So decide now that you are worthy of living as a full-grown man who is making progress, and make everything that seems best to be a law that you cannot go against. And if you meet with any hardship or anything pleasant or reputable or disreputable, then remember that the contest is now . . . and you cannot put things off anymore and that your progress is made or destroyed by a single day and a single action.

"If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Man be true, what remains for men to do but as Socrates did: — never, when asked one's country, to answer, "I am an Athenian or a Corinthian," but "I am a citizen of the world.

Set before your eyes every day death and exile and everything else that looks terrible, especially death. Then you will never any any mean thought or be too keen on anything.

Now there are two kinds of hardening, one of the understanding, the other of the sense of shame, when a man is resolved not to assent to what is manifest nor to desist from contradictions. Most of us are afraid of mortification of the body, and would contrive all means to avoid such a thing, but we care not about the soul's mortification. And indeed with regard to the soul, if a man be in such a state as not to apprehend anything, or understand at all, we think that he is in a bad condition; but if the sense of shame and modesty are deadened, this we call even power (or strength).

Thus Socrates became perfect, improving himself by everything. attending to nothing but reason. And though you are not yet a Socrates, you ought, however, to live as one desirous of becoming a Socrates. 51.

لا تقل «فقدتّة» ... قل «رددثه».
فهل يُهِمُك بوساطة من استردٌ منك الواهبٌ ما أعطى؟!

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

Wherever I go, I will be fine, because I was already fine here-not on account of the place but as a result of my principles, and I am going to take them with me. No one can take them away from me; they are my only possessions, irremovable ones that are enough for me wherever I am and whatever I do.

Δείξατέ μοί τινα νοσοῦντα καὶ εὐτυχοῦντα, κινδυνεύοντα καὶ εὐτυχοῦντα, ἀποθνῄσκοντα καὶ εὐτυχοῦντα, πεφυγαδευμένον καὶ εὐτυχοῦντα, ἀδοξοῦντα καὶ εὐτυχοῦντα.

From Epictetus's discourse against those who take up the philosophers' teachings only to talk about them (Discourses II.19), recorded by his student Arrian.

There is nothing more inspiring than a speaker who makes clear to his audience that he has need of them.

Small-minded people habitually reproach others for their own misfortunes. Average people reproach themselves. Those who are dedicated to a life of wisdom understand that the impulse to blame something or someone is foolishness, that there is nothing to be gained in blaming, whether it be others or oneself.