Epictetus Quotes

Understand what freedom really is and how it is achieved. Freedom isn’t the right or ability to do whatever you please. Freedom comes from understanding the limits of our own power and the natural limits set in place by divine providence. By accepting life’s limits and inevitabilities and working with them rather than fighting them, we become free. If, on the other hand, we succumb to our passing desires for things that aren’t in our control, freedom is lost.

جسدك نفسه ليس ملكك كما تظن. إنه ترابٌ وهدفٌ للإعاقة والقهر. وليس بوسعك أن تملكه إلا بوصفه حمارًا يحمل أثقالًا، وعُرضةً لأن يؤخذ منك في أي لحظة. وإذا كان هذا حال الجسد فما بالك بمتعلقاته التي نتزود بها من أجله؛ الكساء والغذاء والمأوى …؟ فلتكن فيها أزهد من زهدك فيه. إنها متعلقات الحمار.

"Asked, Who is the rich man? Epictetus replied, "He who is content.

If you decide to do something, don't shrink from being seen doing it, even if the majority of people disapprove. If you're wrong to do it, then you should shrink from doing it altogether; but if you're right, then why worry how people will judge you?

"such is Death, a greater change, from what now is, not to what is not, but to what is not now. "Shall I then no longer be?" Not so; thou wilt be; but something different, of which the World now hath need. For thou too wert born not when thou chosest, but when the World had need of thee."

For of the things which are within the power of the will, as being good and present, you have a proper and regulated desire: but of the things which are not in the power of the will you do not desire any one, and so you do not allow any place to that which is irrational, and impatient, and above measure hasty.

Remind yourself that what you love is mortal … at the very moment you are taking joy in something, present yourself with the opposite impressions. What harm is it, just when you are kissing your little child, to say: Tomorrow you will die, or to your friend similarly: Tomorrow one of us will go away, and we shall not see one another any more?

Whenever misfortune befalls you, ask yourself how you would react if it were someone else in the same situation.

Every challenge is presented to you so that you will choose love and turn away from negativity and blame.

Never say that I have taken it, only that I have given it back.

In every act observe the things which come first, and those which follow it; and so proceed to the act. If you do not, at first you will approach it with alacrity, without having thought of the things which will follow; but afterward, when certain base things have shown themselves, you will be ashamed. A man wishes to conquer at the Olympic games. I also wish indeed, for it is a fine thing. But observe both the things which come first, and the things which follow; and then begin the act. You must do everything according to rule, eat according to strict orders, abstain from delicacies, exercise yourself as you are bid at appointed times, in heat, in cold, you must not drink cold water, nor wine as you choose; in a word, you must deliver yourself up to the exercise master as you do to the physician, and then proceed to the contest. And sometimes you will strain the hand, put the ankle out of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go to the contest: if you do not, you will behave like children, who at one time play at wrestlers, another time as flute players, again as gladiators, then as trumpeters, then as tragic actors: so you also will be at one time an athlete, at another a gladiator, then a rhetorician, then a philosopher, but with your whole soul you will be nothing at all; but like an ape you imitate everything that you see, and one thing after another pleases you. For you have not undertaken anything with consideration, nor have you surveyed it well; but carelessly and with cold desire.

There is no shame in making an honest effort.

Look at the matter in this way. Since we can see that a dog is fitted by nature to do one thing, and a horse to do another, and a nightingale, if you like, to do yet another, it wouldn’t be absurd for one to declare overall that each of them is beautiful precisely in so far as it best fulfils its own nature; and since each is different in nature, it would seem to me that each of them is beautiful in a different way. Isn’t that so? The student agreed.

If you wish to have peace and contentment, release your attachment to all things outside your control. This is the path of freedom and happiness. If you want not just peace and contentment, but power and wealth too, you may forfeit the former in seeking the latter, and will lose your freedom and happiness along the way.

Show me one who is sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. Show him me. By the gods I would fain see a Stoic. Nay you cannot show me a finished Stoic; then show me one in the moulding, one who has set his feet on the path