Epictetus Quotes

In literature, too, it is not great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion of your own.

For you will learn by experience that it’s true: the things that men admire and work so hard to get prove useless to them once they’re theirs.

Whoever yields to fate becomes wise, by learning the laws of heaven. — Euripides

"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothin 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."

Disease is an impediment to the body, but not to the will, unless the will itself chooses. Lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will. And add this reflection on the occasion of everything that happens; for you will find it an impediment to something else, but not to yourself.

You see, then, that it is necessary for you to become a student, that
creature which every one laughs at, if you really desire to make an
examination of your judgements. But this, as you are quite aware,
is not the work of a single hour or day

There is a time and place for diversion and amusements, but you should never allow them to override your true purposes.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

part, in honor, in office, in the courts of justice, in every little matter. Consider these things, if you would exchange for them, freedom from passions, liberty, tranquility. If not, take care that, like little children, you be not now a philosopher, then a servant of the publicani, then a rhetorician, then a procurator (manager) for Caesar. These things are not consistent. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must either cultivate your own ruling faculty, or external things; you must either exercise your skill on internal things or on external things; that is, you must either maintain the position of a philosopher or that of a common person.

"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."

"Gustavo Solivellas dice: "Make the best use of what's in your power and take the rest as it happens" (Epictetus)"

Man, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable.

Do not try to seem wise to others.

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.

Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will — then your life will flow well.